HDD Format Issue

Hello All,

I just recently purchased a USB 2.0 to IDE cable and it works great. I transfered all of the files I wanted from the old drives with this cable.

My question is, how do I erase the Harddrive History and bring it back to a 100% blank HDD with this cable?

THanks!

 

Firstly, did you transfer all your data from an old 'internal drive' to your new 'external' drive....Is this correct?

If so, to format the old internal (wipe it clean), you wont need the cable, simply go to 'my computer', right click the drive in question and select 'format'


Regards...

 

I actually transfered a few files from my external to my internal and now I want to whip my external drive clean. I am going to get rid of it and I don't want any traces of info to be felt over or traceable. Thanks for your quick response though!

 

Oh well same man, different haircut....lol

Reconnect the external as normal, get it recognized in 'my computer', then your OK to format as per instructions

Your USB to IDE cable is for data transfer purposes only!

 

So is there anyway I can format this external hard drive with the cable? I currently have a notebook and cannot connect this 3.5" external drive to my laptop. Thanks again!

 

So is there no way at all?

 

Firstly formatting will not erase your data, only reset the disk start pointers.
I presume that since you have connected the external drive and loaded files from it the drives is visible to windows explorer or whatever.
Go to

http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads12.html

and download killdisk or another diskwiper of your choice.
this will erase all the data on a selected hard drive and make sure it cant be 'undeleted'.

BTW I have found those USB to IDE cables are great when they work but they do not work with all disks for some reason You are lucky

Studio T

 

what are you smoking?

If im not sure of the answer i wont reply, i'll leave it to someone who does!

If you can recover data after a format, i'd love to know about it!!



Regards....

 

A peace pipe?

Imagine a rack of pigeonholes, with letters in. On the front of each pigeon hole is a slip of card with a name... Smith....Jones......etc.

All formatting does is remove the cards from the rack and place clean ones instead. IT DOES NOT REMOVE THE LETTERS. Someone could come alon and read the addresses on the letters and recover the original configuration of the rack.

Killdisk is a free program from Mg which will remove the letters by writing something into every memory cell (pigeonhole) so that the original data is actually lost. There are several free and commerscial programs which will do this. Just as there are several free and commecial programs which will reconstruct the data on a formatted hard drive - its called data recovery.

It's ironic that on my MG screen for this thread there are commercial adverts for both these services.

You may find it interesting that there was a case in the news recently where someone had collected old hard drives from a local tip and recovered the data on 4,000 credit cards from them in a space of about three months!

Studio T

 

Show me a freeware program that can actually recover data after a full disk format! Not just a quick format!.....they may claim, but i dont think so!

Its a bit like the old needle in a haystack.....hit or miss!

There are alternate solutions, companies that can try to get your old
data back by using hardware solutions. These type of solutions though
are very expensive. It depends on how critical and important your
previous data is to you!

Regards..

 

If Kasten wants to be absolutely certain that any personal data cannot be recovered, by someone with loads of time, and no scruples, and by whatever method, Studiot's words are, to my way of thinking.
I usually use one of the utilities to write zeroes, f's, and so on, to ensure nothing important is easily recovered.

 

Karsten is right to be careful how he disposes of old drives.
I was merely trying to assist this process not start macho match.

Of course the free disk recovery programs are not as good as the paid for ones, why else would someone pay out like I did? The last time I had a free program that could read a disk byte by byte was for a commodore PET.

FYI Microsoft Diskprobe will allow one to read pc drives in this manner.

Killdisk, as suggested to Karsten, will securely wipe a hard drive, and can be configured to run from a boot floppy. There are other programs in the section.

 

I used killdisk and it works great, but one of my external HDD won't recognize with the cable now. Any suggestions?

 

I did warn ya! Has it got a partition created on it?

 

This might help, worth a try

http://majorgeeks.com/TestDisk_d4803.html

 

Also have you got the jumpers set right? they are all to easy to forget when you switch drives about.

 

Yeah, I think deleted the partitions (whatever those are). But then I used the testdisk program and I added some (somehow) all I know is I didn't recover any. Anyhow, I plugged the HDD drive back in and Windows recognized it then reformatted it. It works great now. Thanks everyone!

 

We are always pleased to know that our efforts come to fruition.
If we help to solve something , between different methods, it makes it worth the effort.

 

'Alls well that ends well'
another satisfied Geek.

Studio T logging off