mij Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 I have two old computers that will go for recycling and I want to wipe the hard disk drives of everything. I have downloaded killdisk and made a bootable flashdrive but it doesn't work. Especially this old Dell Studio. I have tried their (Dell) recovery disk, the MS Vista OS recovery disk and nowt seems to shift it. It always boots up. Quite unlike the usual problems where they wont boot :D. I'd like to try a bootable CD but the system that has a reliable CD recording device is going to be my machine, another Dell with touch screen facility, so that is a no no. Well I might kill its disk :eek: (things like that happen here with me at the helm). Putting a drill through the HDs makes them less of a donation. jim Quote
mij Posted August 31, 2011 Author Posted August 31, 2011 Ooops! The Dell Studio One is my new'ish system I cant remember the model of the one I'm trying to wipe ..... maybe it's on the recovery disk....Dell Dimension is on one of the disks but not the recoverty one....sorry to mislead... jim Quote
KenB Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 Hi, If you are having problems formatting the drive using a disk try this: Take the drive out of the machine and connect it to the second machine as a slave. If this is an old machine it will probably have an IDE data cable ( broad grey ). If the second machine has an IDE drive too then the drive you want to format will need to be set as a slave using the jumper on the back of the drive. Once you have it slaved, the drive can be accessed just as you would a memory stick. If you then Start > Run .....type in ......diskmgmt.msc ........ENTER You will see both hard drives. Right click on the one that you wish to format and select "Format" from the drop-down menu. Quote There is an email going around offering processed pork - gelatin - and salt in a can ......this is simply SPAM !! MiniToolBoxNetwork TestWireless Test
mij Posted August 31, 2011 Author Posted August 31, 2011 (edited) Right click on the one that you wish to format and select "Format" from the drop-down menu. Hmm ok! I don't really want to do that but as a last ditch stand yes, I could do. I'll reserve that strategy though for now, perhaps later today when nothing else has worked. Well 'till I get tired of this way anyway. Trouble is it doesn't even see the mem stick ATM -..... blinking computers. jim Edited August 31, 2011 by mij Quote
paulc Posted August 31, 2011 Posted August 31, 2011 If you download dban (Dariks boot and nuke) and burn it to cd. put cd into old computer and reboot then run from cd. Do not run on your new system. use DBAN only if you want to completely eradicate any trace of data on a hard drive. This is the ultimate in data shredding--there's no recovery once you've used it http://download.cnet.com/Darik-s-Boot-and-Nuke-for-CD-and-DVD/3000-2094_4-10151762.html Quote
mij Posted August 31, 2011 Author Posted August 31, 2011 I'd replied to this post earlier but it seems to have disapeared. Anyway I've just tried this again (and a few times this afternoon along with a couple of others) and it will not boot from a cd produced from this or the other Dell Studio One in the other room. I did try a flash drive and a floppy but it would not boot from them either. Is it me? jim Quote
mij Posted September 1, 2011 Author Posted September 1, 2011 Well I'm fresh to it this morning so have started out with the intention of doing what Ken suggested initially 'cus I'm at the last ditch I suppose. No software helped at all. It wont boot up from another disk - no way. jim Quote
KenB Posted September 1, 2011 Posted September 1, 2011 You do have the DVD CD ROM as the first boot device in the BIOS ? If not - it will boot windows and ignore what is in the DVD drive. Quote There is an email going around offering processed pork - gelatin - and salt in a can ......this is simply SPAM !! MiniToolBoxNetwork TestWireless Test
mij Posted September 1, 2011 Author Posted September 1, 2011 You do have the DVD CD ROM as the first boot device in the BIOS ? If not - it will boot windows and ignore what is in the DVD drive. It is not the first drive but then the bios is not the same as other pcs I've looked at. In this Dell Dimension the boot up drive is 'enabled' or 'disabled' by using the space bar. I just disabled the drives until I got to the drive I was trying. I did try the floppy bootable version as well as the CD bootable version and I tried all the Free software that claims to accomplish this task. But it was having none of it. In the end it offered two alternatives F1 to boot from the chosen drive or F2 to change settings. Even with a bootable disk in the appropriate drive it just gave the two alternatives again with F1 to try again. It just wouldn't boot up. I see why peeps like to steer clear of some computers. jim Quote
KenB Posted September 1, 2011 Posted September 1, 2011 Put the Disk into the CD ROM drive and switch on. Press F12 immediately after the Dell logo appears. This should give you options to select the CD ROM as a boot device for this boot only. Let me know how you get on with this option :) Quote There is an email going around offering processed pork - gelatin - and salt in a can ......this is simply SPAM !! MiniToolBoxNetwork TestWireless Test
mij Posted September 2, 2011 Author Posted September 2, 2011 (edited) As I said previously I've tried this numerous times and it hasn't worked. I did what KenB said above with a modification. I had three HDD here to wipe cuz' I didn't remember that one computer had two HDD in it. I connected them up in a computer as the master disk and that read the CDs as a boot disk. Yes it took something like five hours to do the main disk (over night task) and shorter times to do the others. But Kill disk worked. Funny that the Dell disk would not respond in its own casing .... yet when put in another computer it responded just like any other. Many thanks for your help guys. Problem solved. jim Edited September 2, 2011 by mij Quote
KenB Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 Good to hear that you got there in the end :) Quote There is an email going around offering processed pork - gelatin - and salt in a can ......this is simply SPAM !! MiniToolBoxNetwork TestWireless Test
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