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Miscellaneous => Applications => Topic started by: Giorgi on 1 February 2005, 21:52

Title: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: Giorgi on 1 February 2005, 21:52

Hi all, wanted to ask you if the FDisk format erases EVERYTHING that is on my HDD (so all that shit IE and Outlook history files dissapear)?

Title: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: Refalm on 1 February 2005, 21:56

Quote from: Giorgi

Hi all, wanted to ask you if the FDisk format erases EVERYTHING that is on my HDD (so all that shit IE and Outlook history files dissapear)?

If you remove every partition in fdisk, then yes, it will all be gone.

Title: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: MrX on 1 February 2005, 22:55

no, all fdisk and format does is write free space to your hdd, making it super easy to recover any shit you have on there. get this:
http://majorgeeks.com/download1386.html
do a full format option.

here is how to kill a win98 installation in under 30 seconds or less:
upon booting up, hold down F8
choose command promt only
type:
deltree c:\ /y
and then half way thru, reset the computer, and the hdd will be fsked and it will display 'invalid boot disk ... '

Mr X

Title: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: Giorgi on 1 February 2005, 23:00

MrX,
That method that u gave here, it removes all logical drives etc? So after that i just run Fdisk and re-create all the drives?

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: Refalm on 5 February 2005, 22:20

Quote from: MrX

no, all fdisk and format does is write free space to your hdd, making it super easy to recover any shit you have on there. get this:
http://majorgeeks.com/download1386.html
do a full format option.

here is how to kill a win98 installation in under 30 seconds or less:
upon booting up, hold down F8
choose command promt only
type:
deltree c:\ /y
and then half way thru, reset the computer, and the hdd will be fsked and it will display 'invalid boot disk ... '

Mr X

 How the hell are you supposed to run Windows 98 when all the partitions are removed? ;)

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: skyman8081 on 5 February 2005, 23:10

Most HDD manufacturers ship a special floppy disk with their drives,  if you boot that disk it will write zero's over the entire drive, making  it completely fresh.

and it that ain't enough, and you have classified materials on you drive, use DBAN (http://dban.sourceforge.net/)  which will write random 1's and 0's over your drive 5 times and is compliant to the American DoD 5220-22.M Standard Wipe spec.

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: MrX on 6 February 2005, 01:17

i already put the link in my original message so you can wipe the hdd with 00
did you even do this yet?

Mr X

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: TheQuirk on 7 February 2005, 00:46

Quote from: Giorgi

Hi all, wanted to ask you if the FDisk format erases EVERYTHING that is on my HDD (so all that shit IE and Outlook history files dissapear)?

No one provided a basic explanation as to _why_ it doesn't wipe the HD completely.

When you run fdisk, you simply remove the partion _table_. This means that the data stays on the hard drive. The computer simply doesn't know what belongs where. When you create a new table, the data stays on the HD it's written over.

To remedy this, you should use the tools mentioned above to overwrite all the old data.

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: Master of Reality on 7 February 2005, 22:58

get a nice linux boot disk... then at the shell run "# cat /dev/zero > /dev/hda"

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: Orethrius on 8 February 2005, 04:26

Quote from: Master of Reality

get a nice linux boot disk... then at the shell run "# cat /dev/zero > /dev/hda"

Using that exact command in a slightly different structure also helps to complete tape backups in record time.  :D

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: Calum on 8 February 2005, 08:15

Quote from: Master of Reality

get a nice linux boot disk... then at the shell run "# cat /dev/zero > /dev/hda"

this will erase the contents of the hard drive.
funny how long it sometimes takes to get a straight answer here! thanks, MoR! :-D

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: Master of Reality on 8 February 2005, 21:29

then for shits and giggles run "# cat /dev/urandom > /dev/hda"

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: KernelPanic on 8 February 2005, 22:26

Surely that is what the disk Sauron linked is doing for you.
Just automated, and repeatedly.

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: skyman8081 on 9 February 2005, 05:41

Quote from: Master of Reality

then for shits and giggles run "# cat /dev/urandom > /dev/hda"

If you want DOD 5220.22-M deletion you have to do this:

write it over with 10101010 etc.... then with 0101010101 etc...

Do that 3 times.

then you make a final pass of randomness.

if you have any information that is rated above Secret, that will not work, as the HD retains its magnetism for disk tracking servo data.  Above secret, you must degauss the disk and then destroy the disk completely

Site with a list of compliant methods of erasure (http://www.zdelete.com/dod.htm)

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: Giorgi on 9 February 2005, 21:35

Lol! Bye guys i throw my hdd away..  :D

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: Refalm on 9 February 2005, 22:34

Quote from: Giorgi

Lol! Bye guys i throw my hdd away..  :D

 Okay, okay...

Just do a Low level format (http://www.ariolic.com/activesmart/low-level-format.html) of your hard disk first, then make partitions with the OS setup (a modern Linux or Windows 2000/XP).

Now that wasn't so hard, was it? ;)

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: cave32 on 11 February 2005, 16:50

yes,i think it too:when you run fdisk,you delete partitions or erase the hdd

i suggest:before delete partitions with fdisk,backup all data and run fdisk and delete partitions after
there is another program on internet called partition magic,so more easy and better if i compare microsoft fdisk
so,FUCK MICROSOFT!!!!!!

(http://membres.lycos.fr/drummondfolies/Img/baghdadbob-microsoft.jpg)

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: mobrien_12 on 13 February 2005, 01:26

Quote from: cave32

yes,i think it too:when you run fdisk,you delete partitions or erase the hdd

The Quirk is correct.  Fdisk does nothing to the data on the drive.  It only affects the partition table.  The partition table tells the OS where the partitions begin, and end, and what kind of parition it is.  

You can do whatever you want with fdisk, but until you format partitions, the data remains intact.  You can always go back into fdisk and reset the partitions back the way they were and the data is still there.  I've done this, both with MS FDISK and GNU/Linux FDISK.    

In fact, it is prudent to keep a written copy of the partitions (what kind they are, where they begin and end) in case the partition table gets FUBARed.  Boot with a Linux rescue disk like Tom's rootboot or Knoppix and rebuid the partition table. All data is  intact. This saved my tail once.  

Read http://www.telenovela-world.com/~spade/linux/howto/Partition-Rescue/x31.html for some more information.

If you want to erase the drive, there are the ways mentioned above. The low-level format is the most turnkey solution because drive vendors usually supply a program to do this (either with the drive, or on their web site).  But low-level formats may leave  light ghostly images of the data that can be recovered... like faint traces of pencil writing on paper after using a rubber eraser on the entire page.  That is why critical security facilities such as National Labs must store or destroy old hard drives.

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: Brandon Paddock on 10 March 2005, 08:02

Quote from: Refalm

Okay, okay...
 
Just do a Low level format (http://www.ariolic.com/activesmart/low-level-format.html) of your hard disk first, then make partitions with the OS setup (a modern Linux or Windows 2000/XP).
 
Now that wasn't so hard, was it? ;)

 
You cannot do a low level format of a modern hard disk outside of the factory.  There are ways to force a low level format operation, however it will destroy the hard drive permenantly.  It can be an effective way to destroy a drive... however, in a super-classified-top-secret environment, the data will still be on the disk.  As said above, it takes several passes to completely remove all traces of past data on the disk.
 
Also, some people are under the mistaken impression that waving a magnet near their hard drive will "erase" it.  However, this is of course not true.  The hard drive itself houses several magnets (including the motor).  The hard disk platters are designed to be extremely resiliant to magnetization (that is the whole point, after all).  An extremely powerful magnet is required to write to the disk, and does so on a microscopic scale without disturbing the adjacent bits on the disk.  In order to wipe a disk using a magnet, you'd need something at least as strong as an MRI (you'd have to have no metal in the room lest it be hurled toward the magnet) and have it extremely close (ie. touching) the platters.
 
If you ever see a movie or TV show where someone claims to wipe a hard disk by waving a handheld magnet near it, they're idiots.

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: Refalm on 10 March 2005, 14:22

True. You need a hammer and lots of aggression to permanentally destroy data on a hard disc.

Title: Re: FDisk - Total Format?
Post by: delboy on 10 March 2005, 16:08

I seem to remember the best way to destroy data on a ICL mainframe disk was with a chisel.
 
Now that was an operating system ..!!
 
Fully tailorable - bit like Linux for mainframes.