Re-formatting will remove the data from sight (not really removed), but partitioning usually will not. I have actually repartitioned a Win98 box to split the HD in half, to dual boot Linux. The Win98 installation was still there after repartitioning.
Rick On Friday 04 June 2004 06:39, you hammered the keyboard to write: > Zeroing the drive is fun, but it takes a while. You usually have to > download the utilities disk from the HDD's manufacturer. It does indeed > remove all data, including partitions, boot sectors, and regular data. > It may not be entirely necessary, tho. Re-Partitioning should be > sufficient unless she is turning over the computer to a government > agency. Even if the average user did have the ability to > unformat/unerase/etc, most of the data, if not all, is stuff that they > wouldn't even care about. > > How do you say.. My too sense? :-) > > Jackman. > > Richard Steffens wrote: > > A friend of mine got a new computer and will be giving her old one to > > another friend of hers. She wants to make sure that all her old data is > > deleted, and bought a program (it's a Win98 machine) and tried to do it > > herself. (I don't know which tool she bought.) Since she couldn't get it > > to work, she called me. > > > > Since this machine will be starting over from scratch, wouldn't it be > > sufficient for most purposes to delete the partition(s) on the drive and > > do a fresh install, which would include formatting? I know that someone > > with sophisticated equipment could probably get old data from that drive > > even after repartitioning and formatting, but the average user probably > > wouldn't even know to look. > > > > Am I right, or am I missing something important? > > _______________________________________________ > PDXLUG mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://pdxlug.org/mailman/listinfo/pdxlug _______________________________________________ PDXLUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://pdxlug.org/mailman/listinfo/pdxlug
