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Writing Zeros To Used HDD

dvslats

dvslats

Charter Member
Hi All,
Got a question about installing a HDD taken from another computer. The hard drive is a WD3200AAKS/Western Digital.
This drive is in good shape, but it does have a previous install of XP on it. I found this utility at the Western Digital web page. Diag504fCD/ISO Image. It claims to write zeros the disk.
Has anybody ever tried this? Is this the correct route to go for a clean format? I've never done this before so I am just not sure of any kind of method to be followed.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks, Dv
 
Yes, it does a nice job. WB also has a DL that will ck all sectors to make sure it is clean and no fies were left.
 
The United States Department of Defense standard to wipe disks is to write all zeros, then ones then all zeros again. This is called a three pass system and will leave no data on the disk.

The German Standard is slightly higher. It requires seven passes alternating ones and zeros.

In both cases it does not matter if you start by writing zeros or writing ones.

For our purposes writing all zeros may work just fine it is still better to go the three pass method.
 
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