Reformat a Donated Computer's Hardrive

simple and effective means.
download and burn to cd the first installation disk
for either red hat's fedora core or mandrake linux.

boot the cd with the hard drive installed.
go to expert mode [F1] and expert at command prompt
no to scsi interface modules
custom disk partitioning.
delete partition.
make one ext2 partition, forced to be primary.
bare bones basic install at package selection
( no package groups selected [ mandrake has this, not sure about fedora ] select truly minimal install when prompted.
click on install
when done, put windows cd into drive, when reboot go through install.

linux will remove ALL windows data during the install. windows won't touch some data.
minimal install like that is about 15 minutes for linux, including everything. ( about 100 megs )

Can you put the hard drive in another computer you own that does not have the security software and make it the slave drive. Boot the computer and you should then be able to reformat the hard drive. Easiest solution is to call the person who donated and ask them how to disable it or you can edit the registry and autoexec if you are able to to get rid of it. Do you know the name of the security software, because someone may know how to disable it on boot.

Give Darik's Boot and Nuke a try. Available at link below.

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Dalton

Although this is not a free solution, you can use Ontrack's software for the particular hard drive that will low level format the hard disk. This is usually not recommended unless you use such software.

Get the free download delpart. Put it on a bootable disk and whack those pesky partitions.

I have always had good luck with this program:
http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm

After you run it 2-3 times, you should be able to format and reinstall your OS of choice.

Let us know what worked for you1

Becky

Download another program called MAXBLAST. Try it out its not bad.

In reading all posts to this question I aggree with answers 5,6 & 7, Low Level format might be te best and easiest way around your problem just crack open the systems in question and locate the manufacturer of the Hard drives and then go to thier web site an download thier utilities software folow the instructions that come with and your done , then just reinstall operating system of your choice, "Kill disk" I believe does all hard drives.

Probably the easiest way out of your problem is to download a Utility from one of the HDD makers that writes 0's to every section of the drive this will disable any security measures that where in place and at the same time make it very hard to recover any data on the drive. IBM used to call this program WIPE, Maxtor has a similar thing but it takes longer to run but it does have the ability to chose the number of times that it writes 0's to each section I think that there is a max of 16 writes but it does take a long time.

Col

Would just boot off bootable floppy of DOS 7 or lower and fdisk/format. Ignores what is on the Disk but confirms formatting.

Boot to a Win95/98 boot disk select delete non dos partition. Compleatly remove all partitions, do this twice. Reboot and use the hard drive installer for your hard drive, all hard drive makers have a website to down load thier software.
Delpart works for most drives but I have found that if you want to compleatly clean a drive you need ***^55$ and it is only $29.00.

You need a utility to erase the drives first 10 tracks. I have an old program called drive pro that I use for just this purpose.

A normal format does not touch this area.

This might help.

Lee

Hi,

I agree with Technogal, Killdisk is a very good tool for cleaning out all partitions on a Hard disk drive, and the simplest version is totally free for download.

I'd also like to know the size of the HDD, old oerating system, What version of FDISK and FORMAT you used. What version of Windows you trying to put on them.

If I had to dump 20 PCs I'd have a tear in my eye. If nothing helps try giving them Away.
I don't want the points, But you should award them to one of the others.

Regards, Gunnar Klevedal

You need a software package that will erase the boot tracks. This is accomplished from dos.

I have an old program called drive pro.

http://www.msttn.com/goodies/

Lee