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Low Level Format?


elohelomg

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Well, im looking for a boot cd to do a low level format. Just a quick delete. I will be using this on a mac, so, hopefully its mac compatible.

Which ones are easy, but, effective.

Please share.

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Well, im looking for a boot cd to do a low level format. Just a quick delete. I will be using this on a mac, so, hopefully its mac compatible.

Which ones are easy, but, effective.

Please share.

Gparted

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Try looking in your BIOS, maybe it's available there. My old rig got one. My current rig doesn't have it T_T

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Try looking in your BIOS, maybe it's available there. My old rig got one. My current rig doesn't have it T_T

I'm not too familiar with macs, but, is there a way i can backup the files and what not with that "time machine"? I wanna back up the pictures and music, without creating a boot disk to reinstall the OS the way it is now. I'm getting ready to wipe it down.

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Sorry for the double post, but, the app im looking for clears the hard drives cylinders as well.

the app was something like clearhdd 0

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@elohelomg:

Yes, that's indeed what the Low Level Format does in my old rig since it wipes out an HD clean.

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I would go with the Hiren's.. the last Drive Wipe I did took three days... on a system with single core and 512 MB RAM... But I did it with Spotmau Boot Disc.. I did however find on Hirens a partition shredder... this can be used to wipe a Partiton and all of its information/files.. Seems as though it would work on the Mac.. by booting from disc.. Several options on it... Then simply go about formatting.. installing w/e..

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I would look at the options that the Tray Icon in Hiren's offers ( inside MiniXP )... Really very useful... and I actually believe without really looking into it in depth that this will wipe everything.. Wiping the hard drive wipes it from 0-?all of it... Personally I think it will be down to choosing the right utilities and options.. but There are several tools to look into to say the least.. and most are descriptive of what they will do..

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I would look at the options that the Tray Icon in Hiren's offers ( inside MiniXP )... Really very useful... and I actually believe without really looking into it in depth that this will wipe everything.. Wiping the hard drive wipes it from 0-?all of it... Personally I think it will be down to choosing the right utilities and options.. but There are several tools to look into to say the least.. and most are descriptive of what they will do..

So, heres the thing. I just swaped out a vista pc with a win7 (it was crashing), and as you would think, i thought it was because of windows vista. during hte installation of win7, i found out that 2 of the ram sticks aren't doing to hot, and wouldn't install unless i removed them. Now, those two are out of the way, the pc STILL reboots on its own (bsod), and i have no idea what it could be. It must be the hard ware. But what? the ram sticks are fine because it wouldn't install without it, video card is built in...

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That sounds like a hard drive problem.. I had this happen with a drive that is about 10 years old ( at the time ). I shredded the drive, wiped it.. Tried several versions of Windows.. and n the end it was simply a physical hard drive issue that could not be fixed... The drive had to go.. only thing to do.. What is odd to me is that s many systems.. that I have seen posted around are having RAM problems... to me its unusual... and in each case there are cascading issues... Some have found motherboard issues and so on.. So I would try to do what I could to test the system for problems all around before getting involved financially with anything..

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Eh late, but anyway!

What you are asking for is usually called zero fill on the BOOT CDs that the manufacturer provide on their official site.

It takes a very long time!

You should have two options, a fast/ quick or slow/ full.

One time I did it /full/slow) on a 320GB drive, took more than 24 hours.

It solved my problem, but I knew it was a HDD issue...

I wouldn't use the BIOS version if you have it.

Back then when I did it I read that some destroyed their drive completely with the BIOS version.

The fast option takes a few seconds up to a minute.

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