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Thread: How can I get windows to die?

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    How can I get windows to die?

    I have a computer that I'm splitting up and selling. It has a boot drive ssd with a few other files and then a large 500gb hard drive for media/etc. How can I format this drive? Should I go to bios?

    Alternatively I could just completely format everything, and tell windows to wipe all the hard drives, although I realise that's like asking windows to shoot itself in the head though... any ideas?
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    Re: How can I get windows to die?

    Use the Ultimate Boot CD - boot from it and then use one of the many utilities which will allow you to wipe the drives

    It'll boot from a CD, so it'll be able to handle all drives in the system.

    Keep in mind that a format will not be enough to kill your data if someone wants to get it back. You should use one of the proper wiping utilities present on the disk.
    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    And by trying to force me to like small pants, they've alienated me.

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    VTECmeous Vimeous's Avatar
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    Re: How can I get windows to die?

    DBan - Darik's Boot and Nuke is also a popular choice.

    As Agent says a format is not enough.
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    Re: How can I get windows to die?

    Just a quick note - DBan is on the UBCD, which in itself is always worth having a copy about
    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    And by trying to force me to like small pants, they've alienated me.

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    Re: How can I get windows to die?

    Chuck a brick through it??


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    Re: How can I get windows to die?

    Personally I never get rid of hard drives, when I am finished with them I either remove the platters for my coaster collection or put a power drill through them.
    (\__/) All I wanted in the end was world domination and a whole lot of money to spend. - NMA
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    Re: How can I get windows to die?

    I gave the last lot of old drives to our toolroom apprentices to see how they get on.
    I got a box of bits back - some disks shattered, some they'd attacked with tin-snips.
    Frankly while amusing it was a poor showing and they'd not done enough damage to the disks for me to release them back into the wild.

    I was hoping a die-punch through the centre spindle would do but it just bends modern platters.
    An industrial shredder/pluverisor looks like the next best option short of finding a incinerator to Terminate the sturdy little beggers.
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    Re: How can I get windows to die?

    As useful as these comments are, I'm not actually planning on destroying my computer

    I think I've sorted it so should all be hunky dory

    Thanks for the rather extreme advice
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    jim
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    Re: How can I get windows to die?

    The format command behavior has changed in Windows Vista. By default in Windows Vista, the format command writes zeros to the whole disk when a full format is performed. In Windows XP and in earlier versions of the Windows operating system, the format command does not write zeros to the whole disk when a full format is performed.
    Can't see what more you need than that, unless someone wants to hurl some evidence at me

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