Advertisement
Help Keep Boards Alive. Support us by going ad free today. See here: https://subscriptions.boards.ie/.
If we do not hit our goal we will be forced to close the site.

Current status: https://keepboardsalive.com/

Annual subs are best for most impact. If you are still undecided on going Ad Free - you can also donate using the Paypal Donate option. All contribution helps. Thank you.
https://www.boards.ie/group/1878-subscribers-forum

Private Group for paid up members of Boards.ie. Join the club.

Low Level HDD Format Tool

  • 15-07-2009 11:37PM
    #1
    PDD
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,019 ✭✭✭


    Hi Folks,

    I was wondering if anyone could recommend an open-source or freeware app that will do a low level format of a HDD prefferably live CD or USB.

    I have a 160Gb HDD that had its partitions messed up when I was playing around with Acronis. I wasn't able to read anything off it and didnt want to pay up to 700E for data recovery. I recently came across a tool called Find&Mount which allowed me to access the partitions and get the data off the HDD. Now I just need to format the HDD now so I can use it again, I have tried using Partition Expert bootable CD but to no avail (it just hangs when booting into it presumably coz it cannot read the HDD partitons).

    Any help and feedback welcome.

    Regards,

    Dave


Comments

  • #2
    Khannie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 37,485 ✭✭✭✭Khannie


    Any linux livecd will include fdisk (command line) or grab the ubuntu livecd and run the following at a terminal for a graphical one:

    sudo apt-get install gparted <enter>
    then:
    gparted <enter>

    to edit the partition table


  • #3
    PDD
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,019 ✭✭✭PDD


    Hi Khannie,

    That worked a charm alright, I don't think I'll ever need another partition management tool :-)

    Regards,

    Dave


Advertisement