Re: Best way of wiping the HD ?
dban will fully clean/overwrite your data therefore losing any partition + factory on the hard drive which you cannot recover. Dos command format does not entirely get rid of the data, it get rid of file system table of where the files has been allocated on the sectors of the hard drive therefore your data remains until it get overwritten. Factory restore I am not entirely sure but it may use the format command on where your o/s partition is before deploy the factory image in that partition.
My suggestion that if you want to preserve factory + recovery partition, do a restore to factory setting and create a local account then either fill the empty spaces with dummy files to overwrite and repeat again or use a program, not sure about eraser as I never used it before, to write or clear empty spaces few times.
Install recuva and run the tool to see if find any of your files afterwards.
Re: Best way of wiping the HD ?
@Kai, make sure erasing is what you actually want to do before preceding - done correctly, it will irrevocably destroy everything on the disk, possibly including any and all recovery partitions; the only way to 'restore' the system would be with a manufacturer recovery DVD or a clean OS install.
Factory restore programs generally work from the recovery partition, as stilkun said, and will first format the OS partition and restore the contents to the way it was from the factory i.e. all user data will be lost. What exactly is the BIOS option, an erase command? The ATA erase command does require you, or the software, to set an ATA password on the drive which can be removed upon completion. Just be sure to remember exactly what you set or you'll end up with a paperweight.
You can't format the C: drive of the running operating system, you'll need to boot from a separate OS (e.g. recovery tool) to do so.
I'm not sure what Backflash is, sounds like it could be some BIOS recovery system in case one gets corrupted. Could be wrong though. Still, it shouldn't prevent booting the DBAN disc at least. If there were any write protection measures, you should just get errors messages when you attempted to precede with the erase.
There is no 'erase user data' version of formatting, formatting re-writes the file tables, losing everything stored in the partition, including any operating systems. I think Windows 8 may include some factory roll-back feature, which aims to do just that without reformatting first, but it's not necessarily foolproof depending on what drove the user to consider a reformat in the first place e.g. viruses may be designed to persist, but I'm not certain how the function works so don't quote me on that.
If you just want to go back to factory defaults, i.e. lose any user-installed software/updates/drivers/documents/photos/etc, then unless there's something sensitive you really want to get rid of, the normal recovery process should suffice. Also as stilkun says, using something like Eraser from within Windows to 'erase free space' might be worth a go, but bear in mind it's not as foolproof as a real erase e.g. some programs may mark some file space as used, even though nothing is actually written there - sensitive data could potentially remain there.
Re: Best way of wiping the HD ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
stilkun
dban will fully clean/overwrite your data therefore losing any partition + factory on the hard drive which you cannot recover. Dos command format does not entirely get rid of the data, it get rid of file system table of where the files has been allocated on the sectors of the hard drive therefore your data remains until it get overwritten. Factory restore I am not entirely sure but it may use the format command on where your o/s partition is before deploy the factory image in that partition.
My suggestion that if you want to preserve factory + recovery partition, do a restore to factory setting and create a local account then either fill the empty spaces with dummy files to overwrite and repeat again or use a program, not sure about eraser as I never used it before, to write or clear empty spaces few times.
Install recuva and run the tool to see if find any of your files afterwards.
yup that's sounds like a plan.
Im assuming restore to factory key must be the same as default ?
The only other option in the bios is reset to setup mode.
Re: Best way of wiping the HD ?
I have no experience with using Lenovo laptop, it will definite restore everything to default factory setting that your laptop was preinstalled with and before you got it. You should use I think the Lenovo OneKey Recovery according to their support site manual. There is ver. 1 and 2 of manual so not sure which version would be correct as one mention click on OneKey and the other the Novo button but if you have the paper manual with the laptop, read through and follow the on screen instructions when you enter the recovery program.
Re: Best way of wiping the HD ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
stilkun
I have no experience with using Lenovo laptop, it will definite restore everything to default factory setting that your laptop was preinstalled with and before you got it. You should use I think the Lenovo OneKey Recovery according to their
support site manual. There is ver. 1 and 2 of manual so not sure which version would be correct as one mention click on OneKey and the other the Novo button but if you have the paper manual with the laptop, read through and follow the on screen instructions when you enter the recovery program.
Yes, thats what I ended up doing , but strangely enough it only worked from the hidden partition once I backed up on cd ( waste of time and cds :( ) not a fan of Win 8 at all ..
Re: Best way of wiping the HD ?
Each manufacturer or OEM have their own methods for recovering to factory images as for Dells laptop I deal with at work I would normally either go to PC settings and select reset PC or go to advance startup and use troubleshoot option and reset PC for restore to factory default. Then it will use the recovery partition image to restore.
Re: Best way of wiping the HD ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kai
Yes, thats what I ended up doing , but strangely enough it only worked from the hidden partition once I backed up on cd ( waste of time and cds :( ) not a fan of Win 8 at all ..
Definitely not a waste, keep them somewhere safe as the recovery partition is subject to damage/loss e.g. malware/HDD failure - it's not really a backup if it's on the same physical drive! And I agree, I'm 'not a fan' would be the polite, anti-fanboy-rage-inducing version of my opinion. :P
Re: Best way of wiping the HD ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
watercooled
Definitely not a waste, keep them somewhere safe as the recovery partition is subject to damage/loss e.g. malware/HDD failure - it's not really a backup if it's on the same physical drive! And I agree, I'm 'not a fan' would be the polite, anti-fanboy-rage-inducing version of my opinion. :P
It wont be use on my Acer Aspire V3-571G though ;)