Writing zeros to a drive?

titaniumx3 · 7 Sep 2007 at 18:35

Hi,

On the diagnostic utilities of WD and Maxtor drives there is this option for "writing zeroes" to the drive. Would I be correct in saying that this wipes off all the data and removes all the partitions, i.e. its default unformatted state?

Also, would this cause any problems with the operating system if I did this in windows? The drive in question only has data in it with no programs installed, though some programs use folders on the drive to store stuff, like Fraps for example.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Danger Phoenix · 8 Sep 2007 at 06:24

I don't think it removes partitions - you may have to do that yourself... but running this tool a few times should ensure all data is fully cleared (non-recoverable).

If this is a secondary hard disk, then doing it in Windows is fine (I have done it before when I have sold drives)

titaniumx3 · 8 Sep 2007 at 17:49

Whats the best way of merging the partitions? (Using only freeware would be nice too).

ByteJuggler · 8 Sep 2007 at 19:13

Actually, writing zero's to the drive typically means what it says, ie it writes to the *drive*, i.e. the entire drive, including partition tables, not just to some unspecified partitions ON the drive. So titanium's first take/assumption is generally correct.

Titanium, if you want to wipe the disk, try the WD tool write with zero's and then just check if the partition is gone afterwards. If not, I'd be interested to hear, and in any case, then you can use DBAN to nuke it. :-)

titaniumx3 · 8 Sep 2007 at 20:02

Thanks for the advice, I'll give it a go!

titaniumx3 · 12 Sep 2007 at 19:00

ByteJuggler said:
Actually, writing zero's to the drive typically means what it says, ie it writes to the *drive*, i.e. the entire drive, including partition tables, not just to some unspecified partitions ON the drive. So titanium's first take/assumption is generally correct.

Titanium, if you want to wipe the disk, try the WD tool write with zero's and then just check if the partition is gone afterwards. If not, I'd be interested to hear, and in any case, then you can use DBAN to nuke it.

I used the WD diagnostic tools as you suggested and wrote zeros to the drive (choosing the quick method) and it did indeed remove the partitions, the partitions disappeared from windows explorer and I had to use the WD drive installation utility to format it again. All seems to be working fine so far.

Thanks for the help!

IAmATeaf · 12 Sep 2007 at 22:18

How can there be a quick method, I'm confused, if it indeed writes all zeros to the entire drive then how can it speed it up unless it only overwrote just the current data areas on the drive.

I use a freeware util called KillDisk, do a google, download, create a boot floppy disk and away you go, takes ages but it overwrites the entire disk.

Danger Phoenix · 12 Sep 2007 at 23:05

Some programs automatically do a few passes or write a 0 and then a 1 and then a 0 to to make sure it is wiped... those would be thorough wipes instead of the quick wipe

titaniumx3 · 13 Sep 2007 at 03:51

IAmATeaf said:
How can there be a quick method, I'm confused, if it indeed writes all zeros to the entire drive then how can it speed it up unless it only overwrote just the current data areas on the drive.

I use a freeware util called KillDisk, do a google, download, create a boot floppy disk and away you go, takes ages but it overwrites the entire disk.

I forgot to mention that I'm not doing this to wipe the drives clean of data, I'm not concerned about preventing the data from being recovered. I just wanted to remove the partitions and make one clean partition from scratch, hence why I chose the "quick" option. All it does is write zeroes to the beginning and end of the disk so as to effectively delete all the partitions and file system data, takes like 30 seconds, very quick.

I could have used something like Partition Magic but it was too much hassle.