Windows XP privacy guide

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

No apology needed.

[[PX] Nebuchadnezzar]

Its very simple, you just delete the partitions on your hard disk and create new one.

Sorry Jason I wasnt sure if you were still running the dual boot or not. That makes 3 people running linux.

actually I run Debian on a little machine I have under my desk. (has the 9" monitor on it now...) so that's 4

[[Fallen]Thanatos]

so just delete the partitions and make new one, damn i do that all the time, i just didnt know that is what was called a low level format

ty paul.

[[PX] Nebuchadnezzar]

so just delete the partitions and make new one, damn i do that all the time, i just didnt know that is what was called a low level format

ty paul.

no, a low level format is much more that that, that is just what you have to do to start the process. it writes the hard drive with all zeros so that no data remains, and it takes several hours to complete. but well worth the wait.

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

For clarification:

HLF (Last modified: Monday, December 02, 2002)

(n.) Short for high-level format, a formatting method that initializes portions of the hard disk and creates the file system structures on the disk, such as the master boot record and the file allocation tables.

High-level formatting is typically done to erase the hard disk and reinstall the operating system back onto the disk drive.

(v.) The process of performing high-level formatting


LLF (Last modified: Monday, December 02, 2002)

(n.) Short for low-level format, a formatting method that creates the tracks and sectors on a hard disk. Low-level formatting creates the physical format that dictates where data is stored on the disk.

Modern hard drives are low-level formatted at the factory for the life of the drive. A PC can not perform an LLF on a modern IDE/ATA or SCSI hard disk, and doing so would destroy the hard disk. Older MFM drives could be low-level formatted to extend the life of the disk, but modern hard drives no longer use MFM technology.

A low-level format is also called a physical format.

Floppy disks must also undergo low-level and high-level formatting, but these two are generally performed at the same time. On PCs, for example, the FORMAT command performs both a low-level and high-level format the first time a floppy is formatted.

(v.) The process of performing low-level formatting.



Unless you've done it on a 1, 2 gig drive (the max you can do it on, I think) or smaller, you haven't done a low level format as I understand it. As far as I know (which isn't saying much), erasing the partition tables is just another form of high level format. All the data is still there until overwritten. Just formating is also a high level format except that the partition tables are kept intact.

This article seems to back up my theory:

http://kb.indiana.edu/data/aaoa.html

These are hard drives that you can/cannot low level format:

http://kb.indiana.edu/data/adlt.html

Hard drive companies do LLF at the plant so they can bin their products (ie. a 60 gig has 15 gigs of bad sectors. They LLF it, "limit" the space it can hold, and sell it as a 40 gig) from what I understand.

Though, when I install I usually delete the partition table and format in DOS. However, I don't do that when dual (triple, quad,...etc.) if the other ones aren't buggered; I just fix that which needs fixin'.

That's how I understand it. Welcome to clarification and error correction, though.


***EDIT***
-definitions taken from webopedia

[Ghost [PX]]

I feel more informed now. Thanks for clearing up the whole argument on that Jason!

[[Fallen]Thumperup]

You guys never listen to me. I said the same thing Jason did just not as much detail.

And yes Nik I have low level formatted many many times, I did it to a stack of hard drives that lost the boot track on the disk.

Read my first post to this.