Wiping your harddrive and reinstall of OS

This looks like a good oportunity to ask a question that's been haunting me. About a year ago I brought my Daughter's computer back to the original out of box configuration because she had it so screwed up it was barely able to boot. Well, the procedure was to boot up, and at a certain point in the boot up, which I think was when a white bar momentarily appeared, I clicked an F key and the process to bring the OS back to the original configuration (sample apps and all) began. I can't remember which F key I clicked. I want to say F11, but I don't know. Does anyone Know which F key it is and what the procedure is? I was asked to do it for a friend and need to know the magic words again. The computer I did it on was a Dell. XPsp2 Thanks in advance.

 

I am fairly certain that this is what you do: Press and hold down the "Crtl" key and press the "F11" key during the intitial boot. I have only done it once (on someone else's PC) some time ago. I do not own a Dell.

 

OK thanks. I'll try it.

 

@ twl845 It should give you a message prior to booting into Windows which key to strike to use the hidden\recovery partition. It varies from OEM to OEM.
It is usually a single Fx key.

 

Yeah I've seen that. Thanks

 

Hi everyone,

Due to various issues only now do I have time to wipe the infected drive. Can anyone tell me where I can get a copy of HDDerase? The I cant seem to access the CMRR website.

 

Here's a link for HDDerase.

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,23288-page,1-c,security/description.html

And another with lots of good information related to operating system reinstallation.

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/

 

Heidi Eraser can DBAN a drive (from within Windows). Not sure how quick it is. DBAN took a virtual lifetime the one time I tried.

 

Hi wtsinnc,

thanks for your response but the link you give is to version 1.6beta. UBCD has v3.1 can anyone confirm if this was the last stable version of HDDerase? Thanks.

 

Hi K_C,

Thanks for your suggestion but I think HDDerase is faster.

 

How about this;

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

 

If you don't have an OEM PC with the BIOS locked HPA, why bother wiping with these tools. A simple rewrite of the MBR with its partition table and bootsectors is enough to know those partitions even hidden sectors or partitions(?) where some codes of the malwares(Bootkits or stealth mbr rootkits, etc.) where written or could possibly hide, will be good as gone.
Windows Xp cd or a linux cd could do this for you.
Unless of course some destructive malwares have created many bad sectors or bad blocks, and you want to reclaim those and you want to retain the original full capacity of the entire drive.

 

Thanks wtsinnc. Thats exactly what I was looking for.

Editted to make post clearer.

 

I just want to be clear I have wiped of every last malware remnant on the drive. Thanks.

 

Wouldn't a simple "Zero Write" be good enough to get rid of all Malware?

A "Zero Write" usually takes around one or more hours (depending on hard drive size). I "think" that all of the hard drive vendor Diagnostic Boot CD's/Boot Disks have a "Zero Write" option. I know for sure that Western Digital's Diagnostic Boot CD/Boot Disk has that option.

Also, CopyWipe has a "Zero Wipe" Option and should work with all hard drives.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1434217&postcount=23

 

Hanging around this type of forum makes people paranoid. As trismegistos pointed out, if you don't have one of these big manufacturer crates that use a hidden partition, then just blow the partitions away and create new ones and format them.

If you aren't sure what you have or just don't know, download something like Parted Magic, which has a few partition management tools. If there are any hidden partitions you can take care of them straight away. All the rest is making a mountain out of a mole hill.

 

HDDerase can wipe a drive in minutes from what Ive read.

 

Break the partition tables down and rebuild the partition tables from scratch.....absolutely free.....

01)- First boot the computer outside of the Operating System by booting off the Operating System CD into DOS (Disk Operating System) for FAT32 (File Allocation Table) or,
the Recovery Console for NTFS (New Technology File System)

02)- Format all physical and logical drives by typing at the command prompt: format c: and format d: and format e: and so forth for each respective physical drive and each respective logical drive

03)- Start breaking the partition table down by typing fdisk at the command prompt (applies to DOS and NTFS)
When FDISK is loaded, choose Yes for large disk support

03a)- First delete all the Logical DOS Drives from the Extended DOS Partition starting with the highest lettered drive first, E for example, then D
From the FDISK Options choose: Delete partition or Logical DOS Drive
Repeat (03a) to delete each Logical DOS Drive from the Extended DOS Partition

03b)- Then delete the Extended DOS Partition (place holder for Logical DOS Partitions/Drives)
From the FDISK Options choose: Delete partition or Logical DOS Drive
From the menu choose: Delete Extended DOS Partition

03c)- Then delete the Primary DOS Partition (the Active Partition or Bootable Partition)
From the FDISK Options choose: Delete partition or Logical DOS Drive
From the menu choose: Delete Primary DOS Partition

03d)- Save the changes and reboot off the Hard Disk ignoring the Error
Reboot off Operating System CD again into DOS or the Recovery Console in respect to the Operating System to be installed

04)- Start rebuilding the partition table by typing fdisk at the command prompt (applies to DOS and NTFS)
When FDISK is loaded, choose Yes for large disk support

04a)- First create the Primary DOS Partition and set it to be the Active Partition (Bootable Partition)
From the FDISK Options choose: Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive
From the menu choose: Create Primary DOS Partition to create an bootable primary partition
When asked whether to use maximum available size for this partition, choose: No and define the maximum size in Decimal Megabytes or percentage of the disk to use (example, 60 Gigabytes = 61440 DMB)
(For an one gigabyte partition enter 1024) (1024 X 60 = 61440)
When asked of you want to make the primary partition active, choose yes, or press Esc to return to the FDISK Options Main Menu and choose: Set active Partition and choose C:

05)- Second create the Extended DOS Partition
From the FDISK Options choose: Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive
From the menu choose: Create Extended DOS Partition
From the menu choose: The default to use the maximum available space on the hard drive, minus the size of the primary partition

06)- Third create Logical DOS Drives in the Extended DOS Partition
From the FDIK Options choose: Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive
From the menu choose: Create Logical DOS Drive in Extended DOS Partition
When asked whether to use maximum available size for this Logical DOS Drive, choose: No and define the maximum size in Decimal Megabytes or percentage of the disk to use (example, 20 Gigabytes = 20480 DMB)
(For an one gigabyte drive enter 1024) (1024 X 20 = 20480)
Continue specifying the sizes of Logical DOS Drives in the Extended DOS Partition until the entire Extended DOS Partition is used up or until all Logical Drives that are needed/wanted are created

06b)- Save the changes and reboot off the Hard Disk ignoring the Error
Reboot off Operating System CD again into DOS or the Recovery Console in respect to the Operating System to be installed

07)- Format all of the drives created with the NTFS or FAT32 file systems in respect to the Operating System to be installed
Format all physical and logical drives by typing at the command prompt: format c: and format d: and format e: and so forth for each respective physical drive and each respective logical drive

0- Reboot the computer off the Operating System CD and reinstall the Operating System

09)- This procedure will assign new serial numbers to the partitions and drives, the old architecture will not be able to see the new architecture.


HKEY1952

 

Download a Linux LiveCD like "Gparted." Boot from the CD, and when it loads open a root shell and type:

Code:

shred -vfz -n 1 /dev/sda

Where /dev/sda is the name of your drive (it might be /hda or /sdb, etc.).

This does the same thing as Dban (Dban is nothing but a Linux liveCD). The above command does one pass of zeroes, which is all that is needed to completely erase a hard drive beyond any possible recovery techniques (no, electron microscopes cannot recover data passed over one time).

The reason I prefer this over Dban is because Dban will waste your time. Dban is outdated and it automatically overwrites the data 3 or more times, which is completely unnecessary and superfluous. One pass is all that is needed according to recent research.

 

Does it have any effect on the BIOS ?

 

I hope it's okay that I am bringing an old thread back to life. I just finished reading through this article and this article, which I found by reading through this thread. It seems to me that the best way to completely erase the contents of a HDD, is to do a "Secure Erase" using a tool like HDDErase, and a "Zero Write/Wipe" with a "Block Erase Wiping Tool(BEWT)" such as DBAN.

The "Secure Erase" done by HDDErase would wipe blocks/sectors that are marked as bad by the hard drive, and it would wipe areas of the drive that are hidden to the user, such as the "Host Protected Area(HPA)" and the "Device Configuration Overlay(DCO)". The "Zero Write/Wipe" done by DBAN would wipe the rest of the contents of the hard drive, which I believe HDDErase will do anyway, right? And this is to ensure that HDDErase doesn't miss anything contained on the rest of the HDD?

I gathered from the articles that neither a "Secure Erase" or a "Zero Wipe/Write" is capable of wiping the off-track areas of a HDD platter. Is there an alternative tool that could be used to do this, other than a blowtorch or sledgehammer?