[dba-Tech] How to totally wipe everything on a computer

[Arthur Fuller]

Jim,

I instead used EaseUS Partition Manager and opted for the "wipe disk with
zeroes" and it worked. Fried everything in sight, and then I began again
and so far everything has worked as hoped for: first a created partitions
for ext4 and NTFS and then a Win7 install, and finally Debian 14, which
caught the previous install and appropriately configured Grub to dual-boot,
and now I'm a happy camper playing with old computers who have been taught
new tricks.

I'm beginning to think that it's only old farts who bother trying this stuff

On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 12:52 PM, Jim Lawrence <accessd at shaw.ca> wrote:

> Hi Arthur:
>
> When working for various financial institutions the product killdisk was
> applied to all decommissioned equipment. We usually ran three passes but
> one pass is very thorough: http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm
>
> Jim
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Arthur Fuller" <fuller.artful at gmail.com>
> To: "Discussion of Hardware and Software issues" <
> dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2015 8:22:32 AM
> Subject: [dba-Tech] How to totally wipe everything on a computer
>
> Fortunately I have two computers, so I can continue working with the laptop
> while trying to re-configure the ancient tower. The goal is to set up a
> dual boot into the tower. I'm having several problems. Before I get to
> those, the box has two hard disks, 80GB and a 250GB. First of all, I wiped
> all partitions from both disks, using EaseUS Partition Manager. Then I
> restarted the computer, but to my dismay Grub was still there, and (since I
> wiped the disk) failed to find Debian. So I repeated the exercise and got
> the same result again. Then I went into the BIOS and had a look to see
> which hard disk was the default boot disk, only to find that I was unable
> to change that, for some reason (plus and minus didn't work to
> promote/demote the disks).
>
> So, what I'd like to try next is to restore the tower to its virgin state:
> no partitions, no MBR, etc. But it appears that the EaseUS partition
> manager does not fry the MBR, and consequently Grub still loads. I cannot
> figure out why this happens, but anyway I want to fix it. I now understand
> that once I finally fix this problem, I should boot from my Windows 7
> installation disk, install Windows and its updates, and then reboot to see
> if all is well. If all is well, then I'll reboot using the Debian
> installation disk, point to the other disk as the place to install Debian
> Linux 14, and then (in theory) Grub will detect that Windows 7 is already
> installed and offer to add it to the Grub boot menu.
>
> First things first: how can I restore this tower to its virgin state, with
> no MBR at all? If I can get there, then perhaps the other steps will fall
> naturally into place.
>
>
> --
> Arthur
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-- 
Arthur