[JoeyL]

I read in one of the threads here that in addition to formatting the hd for an o.s. install one should write zeros to the drive. Why should this be done?
Thanks, Joe.

 

[Guest]

Well fdisking and formatting is OK if your going to be Installing everything the way it was.

But if you change motherboards or hard drives or even get a virus writing zeros is a much better solution IMO.

Fdisk and format do not really get rid of everything on the drive.

Have you ever fdisked and formatted a drive then reloaded your OS on there only to find out that it remembers things while installing your software.

 

[x5dr]

If you are having problems you should do a low level format to set the HD back to factory specs.

writing to 0's does exactly that...writes 0's as many times as you specify the program to do it and makes it pretty much impossible for anyone to get any info off your drive but that is all it does. You then need to partition (either by fdisking, the OS, or third party software)...then format and install.

 

[johnwill]

You can download a utility from most major drive manufacturers that will do diagnostics on your drive, and it also includes a function to completely zero the drive, factory fresh. This is how I'd do it...

FWIW, I've never had a disk that I couldn't install onto without going to that extreme, and I've handled many...many disk and systems over the years. I had a PC when they sported 8080 processors, well before the IBM-PC.

 

[OAE]

I read in one of the threads here that in addition to formatting the hd for an o.s. install one should write zeros to the drive. Why should this be done?
Thanks, Joe.

Zeros formating it allow you to see if your HDD its perfectlly working good, there will be created a file on your hdd with ur hdd capacity size [ if ur hdd its 10gb , you'll have a file.txt with size of 10gb ] try a Diskmanager for your hdd
If u have a western digital -> google.com then type download +diskmanager +western digital

Then run -> dm /m and perform an low level format that will took prolly 3-4 hours.

 

[Lectraplayer]

Most disk utilities for your drive brand have a low-level format utility that is menu driven. IE: Seagate has DiskWizard that has the Low Level format utility in it. WesternDigital's Data Lifeguard Tools also has a similar function in it (usually).

 

[SuperCub]

I use Killdisk, it has the advantage of working with any disk and any OS as long as you can boot from a floppy drive. Saves getting the specific tools from each HD manufacture. The free version will perform a single pass 0 to prepare the disk for a fresh build. The pro version can carry out a secure clean, much slower multi pass. I have just had a look at their web site and there are two versions available, the first is free it uses a single pass only, the second the Pro has the added security technology multi pass $29

A word of caution, I have noticed that a number of manufactures are sending out the OS and any software they supply in a compressed form on CDs this is sometimes linked to look for the original build partition on the disk. If a low level format or a run through with 0 is carried out the manufacture’s disk may not work. You can normally overcome the problem but that’s another story.

SuperCub