win 7 ultimate format

[Barry$]

Will be giving away my current computer, with win 7 ultimate...........
What's the easiest/fastest way to format the HD, without buying any
software?
Thanks
Barry Austex

 

[MJMIII]

Can you be more specific? If you have the "7" disk, pop it in and reboot to
reformat and load a fresh install.

 

[Nil]

Will be giving away my current computer, with win 7
ultimate........... What's the easiest/fastest way to format the
HD, without buying any software?

Remove the disk and hook it up to another computer, then format it.

Download a diagnostic disk from the hard disk manufacturer - it will
probably include a format/partition utility.

Download one of those live linux CD/DVDs. Boot that up and format the
HD.

Boot up the Windows installation disk. Early on in the process you will
be given the opportunity to repartition and/or format the disk. Cancel
the installation after that step completes.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Remove the disk and hook it up to another computer, then format it.

Doable, but hardly the "easiest/fastest way" he's looking for.

Download a diagnostic disk from the hard disk manufacturer - it will
probably include a format/partition utility.

Download one of those live linux CD/DVDs. Boot that up and format the
HD.

Boot up the Windows installation disk. Early on in the process you will
be given the opportunity to repartition and/or format the disk. Cancel
the installation after that step completes.

That last way, of course, is the easiest/fastest way for anyone who
has an installation disk.

 

[Boscoe]

Will be giving away my current computer, with win 7 ultimate...........
What's the easiest/fastest way to format the HD, without buying any
software?
Thanks
Barry Austex

Formatting simply isn’t good enough and data can still be retrieved but
Active Killdisk not only deletes everything on a drive, it then
overwrites with random characters, making recovery next to impossible


http://www.killdisk.com/

 

[Nil]

Doable, but hardly the "easiest/fastest way" he's looking for.

How do you know "hardly"? It would take me about 3 minutes. I have both
a live linux and a Western Digital diag disk within my reach. It would
probably take me 10 minutes to find my Windows install CD.

That last way, of course, is the easiest/fastest way for anyone
who has an installation disk.

What, are you rating the speed and ease of each method, and by what
universal criteria? I mentioned a few solutions, and I leave it up to
him to decide if they are easy or fast enough - only he knows for sure.

Did you have a suggestion of your own to make?

 

[LD55ZRA]

Formatting simply isn’t good enough and data can still be retrieved but
Active Killdisk not only deletes everything on a drive, it then overwrites
with random characters, making recovery next to impossible


http://www.killdisk.com/

I have to say that this is overkill in most cases! The fact that the OP is
giving away the machine is indicative that the other person is known to the
OP and so formatting the HD is all that is required because most people
haven't got the knowledge to recover anything from formatted HD.

hth

 

[Nil]

I have to say that this is overkill in most cases! The fact that
the OP is giving away the machine is indicative that the other
person is known to the OP and so formatting the HD is all that is
required because most people haven't got the knowledge to recover
anything from formatted HD.

And if they, in turn, give it away to someone else? It is not difficult
to recover deleted files and partitions in many cases.

You might be right, but I don't think making assumptions is helpful in
a case like this.

 

[LSMFT]

Will be giving away my current computer, with win 7 ultimate...........
What's the easiest/fastest way to format the HD, without buying any
software?
Thanks
Barry Austex

Just get a free or free trial disk management utility, burn it to cd,
boot it and remove all the partitions. That's it. Partition Wizard is
freeware as is Gparted. Gparted .iso makes a bootable cd with partition
utilities. If you want secure erase also get that. The average person
can recover data from a disk without partitions.
You can also create a new partition and fill it up with mp3's. That
will overwrite everything.

 

[Char Jackson]

I have to say that this is overkill in most cases! The fact that the OP is
giving away the machine is indicative that the other person is known to the
OP and so formatting the HD is all that is required because most people
haven't got the knowledge to recover anything from formatted HD.

I've given away a few dozen PC's in the last 10-plus years, but never
to anyone I know. I agree with the folks who recommend wiping the
drive. Formatting or repartitioning aren't good enough, IMO. Data can
easily be recovered after those operations.

 

[Mr doe]

Just get a free or free trial disk management utility, burn it to cd,
boot it and remove all the partitions. That's it. Partition Wizard is
freeware as is Gparted. Gparted .iso makes a bootable cd with partition
utilities. If you want secure erase also get that. The average person
can recover data from a disk without partitions.
You can also create a new partition and fill it up with mp3's. That will
overwrite everything.

Format does not remove your data. It can still be accessed . I always
Delete the partitions.... Use Fdisk from a Win/me startup disk

 

[Mr doe]

I've given away a few dozen PC's in the last 10-plus years, but never
to anyone I know. I agree with the folks who recommend wiping the
drive. Formatting or repartitioning aren't good enough, IMO. Data can
easily be recovered after those operations.

LOW level Format. Write Zeros to the Drive .

 

[Char Jackson]

Format does not remove your data. It can still be accessed . I always
Delete the partitions.... Use Fdisk from a Win/me startup disk

I hope you won't be surprised to know that deleting the partition
doesn't really make data recovery much more difficult than formatting.
Both procedures leave the data on the drive. I would use a Wipe
program.

 

[Rodney Pont]

Format does not remove your data. It can still be accessed . I always
Delete the partitions.... Use Fdisk from a Win/me startup disk

Do a long format. That validates every sector by writing it and reading
it back but can take hours.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I've given away a few dozen PC's in the last 10-plus years, but never
to anyone I know. I agree with the folks who recommend wiping the
drive. Formatting or repartitioning aren't good enough, IMO. Data can
easily be recovered after those operations.

Several points:

1. Although it's easy to recover data after reformatting, not everyone
knows how.

2. Not everyone has any interest in what someone else had on their
drive, and many (probably most) people wouldn't bother to even look at
it. I, for example (who knows how and have gotten several used
computers and drives), have never bothered to even look at them,
whether or not they had been formatted or anything else.

3. Formatting followed by reinstalling Windows makes it much more
difficult (but not necessarily impossible) to recover data.

4. Depending on what was on the drive,not everyone cares whether
someone else sees it. For example, someone who uses his computer for
nothing but playing games probably doesn't care at all.

So what you should do depends on what's on the drive and how paranoid
you are about it.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Char Jackson wrote:
LOW level Format. Write Zeros to the Drive .

Be aware that, although many people call writing zeroes to the drive
low-level formatting, that is *not* what it is. Low-level formatting
should never be done to a modern drive, and will destroy it.

 

[Chuck]

The Mfr's drive specific utilities can usually be downloaded and used to do
what now passes for a "low level" format.
That aside, the "shadow copy" feature can cause problems with selectively
removing personal files and info from a drive if
a full "erase" and multi rewrite to crypto standards is not desired.

I'd likely use a CD copy of Linux and utilities to totally clean off the
drive and start over with a new windows install.
(Easily available on the web for the time to download, and the cost of a
CD/DVD.

Trial and limited use versions of more commonly known disk utilities are
also out there.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

The Mfr's drive specific utilities can usually be downloaded and used to do
what now passes for a "low level" format.

Yes, as I said, some people (and even some manufacturers) misuse the
term "low-level format" that way. But the problem is that if you
recommend to someone that he do a low-level format and if he comes
across and uses a older *real* low-level format utility, he can
destroy his drive. For that reason, I think it's very important to
never use the term in a recommendation to anyone.

That aside, the "shadow copy" feature can cause problems with selectively
removing personal files and info from a drive if
a full "erase" and multi rewrite to crypto standards is not desired.

I'd likely use a CD copy of Linux and utilities to totally clean off the
drive and start over with a new windows install.
(Easily available on the web for the time to download, and the cost of a
CD/DVD.

Trial and limited use versions of more commonly known disk utilities are
also out there.

 

[MJMIII]

How does a true low-level format destroy the drive? I've done it twice
before....once recommended by Gateway (many years ago), and more recently by
Dell.

--


"Don't pick a fight with an old man.
If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you."

The Mfr's drive specific utilities can usually be downloaded and used to
do
what now passes for a "low level" format.

Yes, as I said, some people (and even some manufacturers) misuse the
term "low-level format" that way. But the problem is that if you
recommend to someone that he do a low-level format and if he comes
across and uses a older *real* low-level format utility, he can
destroy his drive. For that reason, I think it's very important to
never use the term in a recommendation to anyone.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Will be giving away my current computer, with win 7 ultimate...........
What's the easiest/fastest way to format the HD, without buying any
software?
Thanks
Barry Austex

I use Eraser, free from Heidi Computers, Ltd.
http://eraser.heidi.ie/

It takes a long time, even if you choose to overwrite the disk only once,
because there's a lot of data to overwrite.

Format first, then erase free space. I say that because I don't think
Eraser will overwrite the used space - but I haven't used it in a while, so
I could be wrong.