Format c:????

[jiffyprogasm]

I am fixing donate a older p.c to a niece who is need of a computer. But prior to doing so I want to whipe the hd. How good a job does the dos command format c do??? If this will not do all I want any other suggestions? Thanks JIFFYPROGASM

[fishninja007]

format c: should be fine. If you want to be really sure run FDISK. Remove all the partitions then create a "primary partition" (might say "primary DOS partition"). When you're done with FDISK you'll have to boot from a floppy and format c:.

[Bovon]

This is just ment to be informative. A format of a hard drive will for the most part, clear the drive (or C: partition, in the case of multiple partitions) but, data that used to be there can be recovered...costly, and not considered necessary when a drive has nothing on it except personal junk. I am told that a low level format will over write a drive with a series of 1's & 0's over and over, which destroys anything that was ever there. Then, a normal format prepares the drive for new applications.

Sometimes, a virus will write to the boot sector of a hard drive, and a normal format will not get rid of this virus. By doing a low level format will over write the boot sector as well.

This is what I have read, and have never had the opportunity to prove it, so take it for what it is worth. As always, I welcome corrections by anyone with the technical expertiese to help me with my understanding of the technology.

[Psycho Logical]

All well and good. But the term "low-level format" is a real misnomer for IDE hard drives on the market since 1998 or so, and can now only be done by the manufacturer, not the end user.

"Classic" LL formatting assumes that there is the same number of sectors per track for the whole disk, which is only true for the older MFM and RLL recording methods. The scheme used for the last several years is zoned-bit recording, which has a variable number of sectors per track. You can't truly LLF that kind of drive yourself.

Some BIOS versions still have an option to LLF a drive, and you can find LLF programs at sites like Maxtor, but this procedure is only meant to be used on the older drives. With a newer drive, it might either just refuse to execute, or if it did run it could actually cause physical damage to the drive.

You can run a "zero-fill" utility, or something like Norton's WipeDisk to overwrite all data on a drive. Many people mistakenly or erroneously refer to this procedure as low-level formatting. And even doing that is probably overkill if you're just giving your system to a relatively unsophisticated user. A straight format, with or without FDISK first, is usually enough protection.

[Bovon]

Ahhh, a good informative post, I stand corrected, and much more informed...thanks.

[rlpos]

Check oug the windows help links http://www.angelfire.com/la2/rlpos1/page2.html

[suzuki1]

When you format just include /u which is unconditional and can not be recovered.