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Windows Ghosting...

J

JLS

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 8, 2004
281
0
Kent, England
Does anyone have any software recommendations for totally wiping a hard drive.. not just formatting it. I want to make sure the person im selling it too can't recover any of my data, so I want it totally clean.

Ive got a buyer for my laptop (a windows xp machine) which im selling (so I can buy a powerbook instead).

I know this is a mac forum, but lots of you use both.

Thanks for any help
 
M

monkeydo_jb

macrumors 6502
Apr 17, 2002
447
0
Columbia, MO
The best way to do a low level format (zero the drive) is to find out what brand the drive
is and get a utility from the manufacturer's website.
 
E

EminenceGrise

macrumors member
Jun 23, 2004
86
0
You could always download a small floppy disribution of Linux or BSD and use dd, e.g. "dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hda", as root a couple of times. That should do the trick. Might just be easier to download one of the other utilities mentioned though.
 
J

JLS

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 8, 2004
281
0
Kent, England
Thanks guys. Those apps seemed to run within windows (meaning they wont delete the 'secret' files windows denys access too) so it has to be done in dos. Great huh.

I had a look into linux formatting tools and found this:

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Thanks very much eveyone :)
 
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