Erasing A Hard Drive

[jjmcray]

What's the best program to use to erase/format a hard drive. The one built in to windows doesn't seem to be working for me.

[Aηdy]

Search google for "Ultimate boot CD". Then dowload that and burn it to a CD, then find the HDD erase tools, there's several of them so just choose any really. Or you could use your XP/Vista CD to run the setup which will format the HDD if you select that option.

[0=]

The easiest way is to do it from the Windows boot CD.

To use the Windows XP Recovery Console to reformat a drive, follow these steps:

Start the computer by using the Windows XP CD-ROM (in the CDROM drive) or the start-up disks (in the floppy drive).
You need to go into your BIOS to change the boot sequence to do this making your CD-ROM drive your primary boot device. (How to do this.)

Once the computer has booted from the CD you'll see a "Welcome to Windows Setup" screen appear and after all the drivers have loaded (shown along the bottom), press F10 or wait and choose to use the recovery console (choose item #2).

In the "Recovery Console" (learn more about that that is at Microsoft.com click here), specify the appropriate Windows installation. It will be listed. It's probably #1. Then log on by using your Windows XP Administrator password. You are probably the administrator and the password if you have never assigned is probably blank, so just hit the Enter key. If you run Windows XP Pro and want to turn off the password prompt then learn how here.

Next, type:

map

and hit the ENTER key.

Note the drive that you want to reformat. The drive letters may be different in the Recovery Console from what they are in Windows XP, but if you want to reformat the C: drive then its likely the largest.

Next, type:

format C: /fs:ntfs

Or if you don't want to format C, use the drive letter of the hard drive that you want to format. Hit your ENTER key.

Next, type:

y

Then press ENTER to continue. When the formatting process is finished, type

exit

and then press the ENTER key to restart the computer

This does a full slow format. A slow format is the safest as it completely wipes everything and checks the hard disk for errors while creating the file system, resulting in less file corruption later on due to writing to bad sectors.

[Blahages]

Is it the Windows Drive? Or a secondary Drive in the Machine?

What does it do when you try to format?

[jjmcray]

It is my primary drive, I get a BSoD when I try to format.

[Blahages]

Why, Exactly, Are you trying to Format your PRIMARY Drive from Within Windows? I'm suprised it'll even let you try. It shouldn't. It should fail out and tell you you can't do that.

If you want to reformat your C Drive (With the Understanding that You Loose EVERYTHING that is on your Drive), Reboot into the Windows Setup or Something, Use the UBCD4Win like Mentioned Above, or Use a Linux Live CD.

[jjmcray]

Okay, here's the whole story. For some reason when I installed XP, my Local Disk drive letter was H: instead of C: so I found a guide on microsoft.com about how to change your local disk drive letter, and it completely f*cked my system. So I tried reinstalling XP, and when it got to the formatting step, I would get a BSOD. So, I tried hooking it up to another computer and formatting it within Windows, and it would just freeze and I would eventually get a message saying something like "Unable to format"

[0=]

Maybe the hard drive is corrupted.

[Blahages]

What if, in the Other Machine, That you have Windows on, You have the HDD hooked up as a Secondary Drive, and you Go into Computer Management, and Go to The Disk Management, and Delete the Partition on the Drive, then Recreate it, and Format?

Does that Work??

[0=]

Isn't that what he did in the other machine?

[jjmcray]

I'm using the Recovery Console method posted above... Seems to be working okay so far. I'm at 65% formattage (??)..

[Blahages]

Isn't that what he did in the other machine?

Nah, He said he tried formatting. Not that he deleted the Partition and Recreated it, then Formatted. The Partition Table could have been corrupted, which could have caused a problem.

I'm using the Recovery Console method posted above... Seems to be working okay so far. I'm at 65% formattage (??)..

Good, Hope that works. :)

[0=]

I'm using the Recovery Console method posted above... Seems to be working okay so far. I'm at 65% formattage (??)..

Recovery console never seems to fail.

[Blahages]

Recovery console never seems to fail.

Unless you somehow Corrupt the System Area of your Registry, which I have done in the past, and had to help someone with a few weeks ago. In that case, You won't even be able to USE The Recovery Console. Because, if the System Area of the Registry Becomes Corrupted, The Recovery Console will not allow you to log into that Installation, because the Usernames, and Passwords are stored in that Area of the Registry. It will thus keep giving you an Access Denied Error.

In that Case, You'd have to boot up into UBCD4Win, or something with NTFS Access, and Go to the "C:\System Volume Information" and pull the Backup of the System Part of the Registry out of the System Restore Backup that would be in that folder, if you have System Restore Enabled, and Restore that to the C:\Windows\System32\Config Folder. Then, it'd work again.

:)

There are other ways it fails you too. ;)

But, Generally a good thing to Try. I use it mainly when I break my Boot loader, or I want to Rewrite the MBR.