Write zeros to HDDs while in windows?

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klankymen
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Write zeros to HDDs while in windows?

Post by klankymen » Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:37 am

Hey, I tried zeroing a hard drive. Unfortunately it takes about 6 minutes per GB, which adds up to 2 days for a 500gig drive. Unfortunately this is my only computer and I can't really let it chill around in BIOS for 2 days straight. Is there any program to write zeros to a drive while in windows?

mellon
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Post by mellon » Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:52 pm

From Windows it can done with Eraser: http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/. You won't be able to fully wipe the system drive, naturally.

If you want to wipe the whole drive the best way to do that is to download the Darik's Boot and Nuke http://dban.sourceforge.net/ boot CD image, burn it to CD, boot from the CD and select the one-pass only-zeroes option. Should take only an hour or two for 500GB.

LAThierry
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Post by LAThierry » Fri Mar 07, 2008 1:12 pm

Agreeing with mellon here on the method of using a bootable CD. I recommend Ultimate Boot CD. The CD has quite an array of free tools, including drive erasing.

Lawrence Lee
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Post by Lawrence Lee » Fri Mar 07, 2008 1:57 pm

I usually use KillDisk on the Ultimate Boot CD. IRC, the last time I wiped a 320GB drive it took about 3.5 hours.

klankymen
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Post by klankymen » Fri Mar 07, 2008 5:12 pm

LAThierry wrote:Agreeing with mellon here on the method of using a bootable CD. I recommend Ultimate Boot CD. The CD has quite an array of free tools, including drive erasing.
That's what I was using. but 50 hours is too long.

I'll take alook at the other programs.

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