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Article #20665Re: How to make an unitialized disk
From: Jon L. Spear
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1987 17:35
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1987 17:35
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The "best" way to make a formatted disk uninitialized is to degauss it. This can be done in a few seconds with a fairly inexpensive handheld device intended for erasing cassette tapes, and can be bought at your neighborhood Radio Shack. Of course, all information on the disk (and any other disks within a few inches of the device) will be erased. So be careful. In a pinch, a small (but bigger than the average stick-paper-on- refrigerator magnet) permanent magnet passed over the diskette shell will erase enough of a disk to make it unreadable such that the Mac will think it uninitialized. However, too powerful a magnet could (has never happened to me) damage the disk. Also, a determined person will probably be able to read some information from these disks. -Jon (jspear@afit-ab.arpa - return address above may be wrong)
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Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!lll-tis!afit-ab!jspear From: jspear@afit-ab.arpa (Jon L. Spear) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: How to make an unitialized disk Message-ID: <239@afit-ab.arpa> Date: Fri, 23-Oct-87 12:35:26 EST Article-I.D.: afit-ab.239 Posted: Fri Oct 23 12:35:26 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 25-Oct-87 15:05:56 EST References: <464@aucs.UUCP> Reply-To: jspear@afit-ab.arpa (Jon L. Spear) Distribution: na Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology; WPAFB, OH Lines: 14 Summary: Deguass it