🚀 go-pugleaf

ForADolr <ForADolr@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:759210$nuj@drn.newsguy.com...

> Only use Rod Speeds suggestion on Samsung drives.  Each drive manufacturer
> has their own utility to clear a hard drive.  They are not interchangable.

You are confusing the utes which do bad block scans and often claim
to do a low level format but dont, with that ute that just zeros the data
in the sectors. Completely safe to just zero the data in the sectors.

> I would suggest you simply fdisk to clear all parts. create a new one, format it

That aint enough, particularly when the drive is being used with
a drive type which isnt the one that was used when it was previously
fdisked.  Fdisk can get seriously confused about the physical layout
data in the first physical sector and its best to zero that sector out
to force fdisk to rewrite the boot block completely.

The other reason for using a ute that zeros out the data in the early
sectors is that that gets rid of any driver which loads itself in the early
boot phase. The big advantage of zeroing the sectors out is that you dont
need to know which driver is there, that approach gets rid of all of them.

> then run an antivirus program, Mcafee, Norton, ete, to scann for
> virus. You can get a free trial of mcafee that should suit your purpose.

No real need to do that if you scrub the data out of the drive with
a ute like that and do a proper unconditional format after that.

> Being in a classroom situation you should have some type of antivirus
> program running all the time.  With the mass appeal  of the internet,
> our virus activity has gone up from students bringing in disks from home.

Sure, but that's a separate issue.