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How to manually reformat a hard drive?

Discussion in 'Other Hardware' started by evanwilson6, Jun 1, 2006.

  1. evanwilson6 Newcomer, in training Posts: 32

    Here's the problem. I have a hard drive that has been completely screwed by Fedora Core 5. My Windows recovery CD no longer boots right and I would like to just completely overhaul my HD. I was told to manually reformat the HD. Could someone please tell me how this is done?

    Actually, anything that could just wipe the computer would be great too (besides buying a brand new hard drive).

    100GB 5400RPM
    Alienware Sentia m3200
    evanwilson6, Jun 1, 2006
    #1

  2. Nodsu Newcomer, in training Posts: 9,431

    Do you have a working Fedora CD? Boot that and choose the recovery or emergency mode it gives you. From that command line run "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1024 count=1024" This will fill the beginning of the hard drive with zeroes, effectively clearing any information that might confuse Windows.

    You can also download the utility from dban.sf.net for a more user-friendlt hard drive wiping solution.
    Nodsu, Jun 1, 2006
    #2

  3. evanwilson6 Newcomer, in training Posts: 32

    Boot sector move?

    Does this mean that I should keep the Fedora boot loader out of the beginning always?
    evanwilson6, Jun 1, 2006
    #3

  4. evanwilson6 Newcomer, in training Posts: 32

    Oops.

    GRUB boot loader*
    evanwilson6, Jun 1, 2006
    #4

  5. Nodsu Newcomer, in training Posts: 9,431

    No.. Nothing to do with GRUB. Sometimes Windows gets confused with partition tables created by non-Windows programs.
    Nodsu, Jun 2, 2006
    #5
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