Hard Drives?

Question

I was Going threw a few old boxes and i found my sisters dads computer ****, he used to be a hacker and has a load of comp ****. i found 2 hard drives a 160 gb and a one that doesnt say nething on it so idont kno, i was wondering how to clear all the stuff on it, im sur there slured with viruses and is there ne way i can clean them out completly?

Answer 1

I think your best bet is to format the drive from DOS, as you run far less risk from viruses so download the free version of the program Killdisk from http://www.killdisk.com

Get the Bootable ISO Image version so you can burn it to a CD. Once done, install the CD in the drive and shutdown your computer and start it up in DOS mode. It is quite often done by pressing the F8 key before Windows starts loading. Once in DOS change the start-up disk list so that CD is the first to be checked then harddisk etc. Now Shutdown and install your hard disks.

Now startup the computer and the CD will load Killdisk, and then follow the onscreen instructions to format the old harddisks. This might take a while but once it's done restart in DOS again to change the startup disk order back to the way it was, then load up Windows and partition the old drives. Bingo all ready to go with no viruses. Hope this helps!!

Answer 2

Hi. Sort of. You can hook it up to a good PC and format the drive, but a good tech could still get info from it. The are programs such as "Sure Delete" that will over write all data many times (7 is military strength, but I would go with 10 times) which makes data retrieval difficult. http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,22393-order,1-page,1-c,alldownloads/description.html

Answer 3

just do a format. that will do the job. there is no need to f**k up the harddisk with tooo many times of formats. just one and install your system. u can do a low level format if it exist on your BIOS or u can get it from the internet