[SOLVED] Manually Resetting a HDD

techdude · 05-12-2015, 09:52 AM

I have a hdd that had some pretty bad Windows viruses. I want to put Windows 7 back on it. But first, I need to completely reset the hdd so no viruses can return. GParted only reformats, but doesn't override the whole drive. Any suggestions?

/dev/random · 05-12-2015, 10:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by techdude

I have a hdd that had some pretty bad Windows viruses. I want to put Windows 7 back on it. But first, I need to completely reset the hdd so no viruses can return. GParted only reformats, but doesn't override the whole drive. Any suggestions?

Code:

dd of=/dev/your_device_here if=/dev/urandom bs=1M && dd of=/dev/your_device_here if=/dev/zero bs=1M

This will overwrite all data on this disk with random garbage, then overwrite that data with zeros.

This will effectively blank the disk with no hope for basic data recovery. This will not make the drive immune to viruses or any malicious content that is downloaded afterwards.

Dman58 · 05-12-2015, 10:35 AM

Reformatting would erase the entire drive contents as long as the proper partition is selected or just do a new installation of Windows and choose the option to reformat but I believe that is default. To keep viruses out upon installing the OS make sure you Windows update 1st then repeat until everything is up to date then install anti-virus and update that as well. Windows isn't virus proof by a long shot but with the right practices they are avoidable.

techdude · 05-12-2015, 10:46 AM

Thank you /dev/random. This might take a while, it's a 1Tb drive.