formatting

For FAT32 (or FAT16) based file systems, boot from a startup disk for your version of Windows.

Simple method:
type format C: /u /s at the command prompt.

The "U" switch means unconditional. This is a full format of the drive.

The "S" switch copies the file system over from the floppy to the C: drive, making it a boot-able drive.

Complete:

Again boot from the startup disk.

At the DOS prompt, run fdisk /mbr
This clears the master boot record on the hard drive.

Run fdisk again, and follow through to delete ALL logical drives and partitions.
For a link to a fdisk tutorial, check out www.fdisk.com/fdisk

Re-boot.
Run fdisk again, and set up partitions as desired.

Re-boot, and format at least the C: drive.

Yourdisk is now as clean as practical.

Chas

Hi

Do you mean that another person may still retrieve data from your hard drive even after a format has been performed?

You need to use a disk-wiping facility which will actually overwrite every part of your drive, removing all trace of any sensitive data Such facilities come with most utility suites, and there are also several free programs that can remove files - bcwipe, eraser. This should suffice.

However, the purists claim that the only way you can truly prevent anyone from extracting data from a hard drive is to physically destroy the drive. Depends on how paranoid you are...

Good luck

the only real files that remain are on the disk drive.

to solve your problem, get the diskette or download the file and make a diskette from the vendor of your hard drive. find the vendor by entering setup at power on. maxtor, western digital or seagate, maybe ibm are about your only choices.

choose to perform a factory calibration on your disk drive. find the one that says: warning, all data will be LOST. thats the one you want. rest assured, when it says the data is lost, it is.
the test will cause your drive to write 0's and 1's to each last bit. do not worry about unformatting first, you can do that but if youre going for the ultimate wipe, just wipe.

once the disk has been exposed to write/read and certify of all locations, the previous data cannot be recovered. as a former firmware engineer at western digital, and disk certifier applications engineer, I would like to see proof of data extraction from re-certified media. the cert test would fail if previous data was read.

the other parts of the media get info for calibration/errors at special addresses on the disk, but Id assume Nortons or equiv could dump all data

No one mentioned my FAVORITE DOS command: FDISK! If you want to quickly and easily remove all files from the HD, put FDISK on your boot diskette, reboot, and run FDISK. Remove all partitions (except for the one containing the CMOS/BIOS programs, if it exists), and then create one big partition. Exit FDISK, reboot, then FORMAT the hard drive (FORMAT C: /s).

Make sure FORMAT.COM is on your boot disk before you do any of this.