I have to format my drive and I was wondering how I could go about this the easiest. I want everything erased. I am running MEPIS linux

You mean like wipe out the disk and start over or format a new partition?

To format a new partition do this:
mke2fs -j -b 1024 /dev/hd?

To wipe everything out you can always do the 'rm -rf /' (I know not everything is gone but it does a good job of making it not boot. )

it doesnt wipe everything out? I need something to completely erase my whole comp.

lol this may seem wierd but could I put in my mepis iso disk and run the install and quit right after it formats?

do you a) want to just have a completely empty drive or b) want to make sure that when the feds call they can't pin the blame for the incident about the schuman account onto you? if it's a) then just use fdisk to remove the partitions, no need to format anything, just repartition to whatever else you want. if it's b) they always have a way... run.

no, more like i want to wipe out linux so i can install windows, then install linux again because its much easier to dual boot with windows installedf first

Boot into console somehow (use a liveCD maybe?) and issue the following command:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

Goodbye hda, partitions, data and all. (completely erases your hard drive: use with care)


Have your Windows disc ready. You'll need it to boot.




Other option:

cfdisk your drive so that you have no parititions formatted (ie delete everything).

Then boot via your Windows disk. Much quicker than the dd command, but it doesn't make your hard disk a clean slate either.

If you want that clean feeling, what RodimusProblem suggested with dd is the way to go. This will change all the bits on the drive to 0's.

If you are afraid of the feds, then pull the drive out, smack it with a sledge hammer, then melt it. Seriously. I'm not kidding. You can use the program shred (type shred --help for options and synopsis) and write over the data on the drive an insane amount of times. This still won't completely wipe everything, since data could still be stored in the bad sectors, which you can't write to.

In a hard drive there are platters, essentially disks made of sillicon or aluminum and coated with a special magnetic material of which I can't remember what it is right now. When you write to this, you're manipulating magnetic properties which the drive reads as 0's or 1's. When you write some data, then write over that same data, the "echos" of the orignial data is still there.

I think the FBI can go down 7 layers, according to my sources which are not reliable. They pull the platters out and put them in some expensive tools back in a lab where they can record and make sense of the echos.

shed won't touch the bad sectors where data still resides. You can write over a drive as many times as you would like with shred. But if you're shreding for a real purpose, then you should really physically destroy the drive.

Um... guys. How the hell did this thread get to me all of a sudden becoming a top10 most wanted person? haha?? All I want to do is redo my partitions so I can install windows xp. What format do the partitions have to be in for windows xp? Thats all I want to do, And honestly I really dont want to melt my 160gig hd. thx

Just boot up with the Windows XP cd and it has a section where you can delete any or all partitions. Then create a new one to put Windows on. That is usually NTFS now days. Leave the rest of the drive alone as you can partition that with your Linux installer.

right so you actually want to format anythign at all.... you want to delete partitions, which is a totally different thing, and somethign that XP can do on its install. any old bootdisk containing fdisk will do too.

When I boot up with windows xp it doesnt boot up to windows. It goes to linux. Yes I made sure boot to cd was on.

You could make a boot floppy which has Smart Boot Manager on it . Then boot up with that and select your cdrom drive which has the WinXP cd in it.