To whoevers in the know how

SpAcEd OuT

hey Im thinking about wiping my disk but I have a few questions first

Will wiping my disk delete everything on my computer for instance my media player or limewire ?

if not what does it wipe?

Thanks

zAbbo

wiping your disk, as you would imagine will leave everything intact

But seriously, do you mean format?, which will completetly wipe it.

Might be better if you say what you want todo, and why, more info me laddo

Fenster

"wiping your disk" should be pretty self-explanatory, in fairness.

To what end are you formating it?

SpAcEd OuT

ehhhh i dunno im an idiot when it comes top computers im downloading this
http://www.tux.org/pub/distribution...2.0.103.dos.zip

DemonOfTheFall

If you dont know what formatting your hard drive is you might have a really really hard time learning to use linux, no offence.

SpAcEd OuT

is there any simple way to delete previous internet site visits and posts so the gardai cannot get it back?

(I didnt do anything illegal its just my brother has decided to sell the computer to his garda friend whos very good on computers and I talk about drugs a but too freely,not taking any chances)

Orion

Formatting won't get any data off the disk at all. It just marks all the data sectors as available and can be very easy to get it all back. But only if your Garda friend is bothered to. There are apps you can get (just google them) that write 0's to every sector on the disk and then format. That is much harder to recover from.

SpAcEd OuT

what would i type into google to get them and would they delete my limewire files and media player cause i dont want those applications deleted

jessy

If you want to Compleatly erase every thing from your Hd then this should do, else if you want to just erase only Internet Temp Files then try the free trial of Steagnos

MiCr0

if you are that paranoid, remove the harddrive and replace it with a new one

Orion

Or this to completely wipe the disk as well.

Seanie M

Ty an electromagnet... wipes a lot of stuff out, particularly if a strong EMP is emmitted...

Khannie

SpAcEd OuT wrote:

what would i type into google to get them and would they delete my limewire files and media player cause i dont want those applications deleted

There are progs in the free software sticky for deleting individual files properly. I'd suggest you either do what micro says (get a new drive) or backup your limewire files and wipe the whole drive properly (if you want to be sure to be sure).

r00t69

If your giving the machine away you will obviously need to move the stuff you want to keep onto disk/another system unless your going to call down to your Garda friend to pickup your latest limewire downloads

I would suggest the new disk is safest, if I have judged you tech knowedge correctly - no offence intended. There are those who would consider the installation of a P2P app sufficient evidence of illegal activity!

So its either replace the disk so you can keep it and add it to another system or wipe it completely with some of the tools mentioned above accept the electromagnet

Just my 2c

vibe666

east tec eraser does a good job of selectively deleting stuff, and making sure that things like slack and free space are also cleaned.

very effective and the only thing i wo0uld recommend for a surgical strike on your temp files.

Peteee

A very large hammer to break the harddriv into millions of tiny bits is the only 100% safe option.

I've heard (i think) that even those electromagnets arnt 100% effective.

But unless the NSA are gonna come after you, i wouldnt worry too much

mp3guy

Start>Run

cmd

Format C:

Capt'n Midnight

Macros42 wrote:

Formatting won't get any data off the disk at all. It just marks all the data sectors as available and can be very easy to get it all back. But only if your Garda friend is bothered to. There are apps you can get (just google them) that write 0's to every sector on the disk and then format. That is much harder to recover from.

That only applies to quick formats, if you delete the partition table DOS won't let you do a quick format on a drive or you could use Format X: /U to force a longer one.

whatsisnames boot disk is handy if you want to wipe drives, note IDE drives remap bad sectors on the fly so up to 1% of the spare bad sectors (and perhaps adjacent sectors) may still be visible after a full format, unless you are low leveling on a SCSI disk or something like that.

clint_silver

No matter what actions you take after all the good recommendations here, if youre an inexperienced user, Id get someone else to look at it to be sure.

Any files you just "delete" can be got back very easily by a not too determined user. I seen a video once of a guy who recovered data from the platters off a burned/broken/formatted disc to show it could be done. Data recovery is big business for top end guys but I really wouldnt worry about someone trawling through deleted cached web pages to find a discussion about a bit of charlie on a second hand pc unless youre currently under investigation already.

Limewire and media player are applications and are downloadable to any pc. If its just the mp3s and your porn collection youre worried about, Id burn them as data to a few cds and then not giv a toss about wiping the disk.