How to format a harddisk

[ChatIndia]

How to format a hard disk. What I do till now is to use windows DVD to format, delete partition or create partition. Is it the right way to do. Any other way to do? How can I wipe all data and make it like a new one, cause I know even if I delete all the partitions from windows cd, they leave something like "windows xp" "windows vista" which can be seen during booting. :frown:

 

[bhupendra2895]

Before doing anything with partitions give them a label/name, so if you play with them you won't delete the partition which you don't want to delete.Inside windows there is a disk management utility which can manage NTFS and FAT partitions but it don't support the ext partitions.So best way to do this is by booting your system using a linux live cd and manage partitions using gParted.I recently used this utility to increase size of my swap partition by turning off swap on it, as suggested by Alex Mac in suspend or hibernate thread.In windows such utilies comes but most of them are not free.
If you have a issue like that you deleted a windows xp partition or vista partition and it is being shown in bootloader then use easyBCD or msconfig(run msconfig by windows key+R) to remove these entries.

 

[suprimoman29]

For wiping:
DBAN
Active@Killdisk
CopyWipe
Secure Erase

Of these, Secure Erase is the fastest and most complete solution.
It is equivalent to U.S. government physical destruction guidelines.
No sectors are missed with this erasure method.
Secure Erase is built into every hard drive so all is needed is access to the function.

Wiping is recommended before restoring from back up images or re-installing after failures and errors.

Restoring from back up images is much faster than Re-installing from OS media. 20-30 minutes for back up restore vs. 1-2 hours+configuration time for re-install of OS.

 

[ChatIndia]

For wiping:
DBAN
Active@Killdisk
CopyWipe
Secure Erase

Of these, Secure Erase is the fastest and most complete solution.
It is equivalent to U.S. government physical destruction guidelines.
No sectors are missed with this erasure method.
Secure Erase is built into every hard drive so all is needed is access to the function.

Wiping is recommended before restoring from back up images or re-installing after failures and errors.

Restoring from back up images is much faster than Re-installing from OS media. 20-30 minutes for back up restore vs. 1-2 hours+configuration time for re-install of OS.

how 2 get access to that function?