Would this idea work?

I wipe my drives clean using WipeDrive from time to time and then I've reinstalled Windows and re-activated. But I was wondering if I could save myself some time and hassle with an idea I had.

What I was thinking is after I wipe my drives I could put the Disk Director CD in and run it from the CD. Then if Disk Director has a format utility in there I could tell it to format my first drive.

Then after that is done, I could put the True Image Disc in and run that from the CD and then use that to restore my entire computer to the first drive from a backup image that I have on my external USB drive.

I don't know if Disk Director has a format utility. But seems to me this idea should work.

 

It does and you could but it isn't necessary. Read on:

That's all that is needed. Formatting a drive before restoring an image is an unnecessary step. The first thing that True Image does is to delete the partition, so there goes your format. The next thing it does is to restore your image to the disk complete with the formatted file system that was present when you created the backup.

True Image can restore to a completely blank hard disk. You don't need to pre-format the disk.

 

Yeah I know what you mean. And that is the way I normally do it. Just go into Acronis and hit the Restore button and it's a done deal.

But I was wondering if the need ever arose or I wanted to wipe the drives to do a forensic cleaning if the other method would work.

I thought that when Acronis deletes the partition the formatted drive is still formatted. There is nothing on it, no partitions cuz they have been deleted, but I thought the formatting was still there.

How can Acronis successfully restore an image to a drive that is no longer formatted? You can't do anything with a drive if it is not formatted first.

 

No, what is left is unallocated free space. You are correct that the bits still remain on the drive but it would take file recovery software to find their location. A PC operating system cannot.

Windows can't do anything with an unformatted drive (well, it can format it), but TI does not need to do a format first because all of the formatting information is contained in the image file. All TI does is to put the backed-up sectors back on the disk, complete with all of the infomation necessary to re-create the file system that was backed up.

 

If what you are saying is true, then I could actually wipe my drive clean with WipeDrive, and I wouldn't even have to format the drive first. I could just proceed from there to putting the Acronis True Image Disc in and running that from the CD and go into Restore and restore my backup image directly to the drive.

I didn't think I could do that. But if I can, cool.

 

Yep, you've got it!

 

Mark,

I've never been a "wiper". Can't see why it's needed unless you are concerned about certain files being recovered by others. Do you wipe at times?

 

I wipe every time I restore an image, that will stop any possible problems arising, and that can indeed happen.

 

The Nodder,

I've restored thousands of images and never wiped a HD before a restore. I'd like to understand why you feel it's necessary.

 

Hello 357mag;

I run XP but this also works with W2K and Vista.
I have four master hard drives, one each for W2K/SP 4, XP Pro/SP 2, XP Home/SP 2, and Vista Ultimate that include the operating system, drivers, and only those "must-have" applications that I want on every install. Using Acronis, I clone in the automatic mode to the destination drive, then add whatever additional programs I want to add such as antivirus, firewall, and antispyware to the cloned HDD.

Usually, I will completely wipe the destination drive prior to cloning as I have read that not doing so may result in problems during the cloning process; that said, I've never had a problem when I didn't wipe the HDD and just cloned over any existing data. In any event, you will get an on-screen prompt warning about loss of existing data and must give final approval.

Using TI, I have yet to experience a failure.

Something I wanted to mention in case you don't know; although it's widely believed that you can clone only to a drive of equal or larger capacity, I have on numerous occasions cloned to a smaller drive.

 

Brian:

No, I don't. I have wiped the first few hundred sectors of a drive at times when the partition table was screwed up and I just wanted to start over, but in general I don't.

I can think of a couple of examples of when you might want to do this:

1. You are selling a PC/hard disk and you want to remove all traces of private data
2. Your PC was infected by a virus/trojan/rootkit and you want to make absolutely sure that all traces of it are gone

 

Mark, good examples. I've wiped HDs in your example 1 situation but fortunately I haven't experienced example 2.

I'm interested in why people "wipe" as it is a frequent comment in posts. In most cases I suspect it's on a myth basis.

 

wtsinnc,

Interesting. I doubt many people have tried that.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/notes.htm#15

 

Brian,

I tend to wipe the start of drives (including the MBR) when testing and when switching boot managers. Some don't seem to play well (like switching between BING and OSS).

I also often have to wipe flashdrives to reset them, get them to work, be able to be detected after corruption, etc. I sometimes use DD for this, though usually I end up using dd in Linux to wipe the entire device.

 

MudCrab,

That makes sense. Zeroing Track 0. I've done that but not because I felt I had to. Just in testing. Zero the track then restore the track. Like you, I do this when testing but not for a routine restore.

My interest, apart from the examples mentioned by Mark, is why people wipe the entire HD prior to a restore. It's a time consuming procedure on a large HD. Are they gaining anything?