1 Topic by treesmoker

  • treesmoker
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  • Registered: 2010-08-15
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Topic: So Who's The #1 Expert With Gparted......Because This WILL Test You!

Alright so here's the essay, and before you say it, YES I KNOW I'VE MADE A PRETTY BIG MESS OUTTA THIS, lol

So I was going to wipe my desktop HDD yesterday with HDDerase.exe ATA secure erase command, however I thought before I risked my good destop i'd wipe my Latop (Dell Latitude D630) HDD, mainly because my laptop doesn't have as many files that'd need transfering to my External HDD before the wiping. So I started by using HDDerase v4.0 and it'd get to the screen where you could choose the device you wanted to wipe and it showed this:

http://i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww60/treesmoker08/SDC10549-1.jpg

so after reading around and reading the SSD's only work on v3.3 of HDDerase.exe that i'd try again (BTW I wasn't sure weather my laptop had an SSD or not, but hey it can't do any harm right?, well......

Exact Same problem, different version.....
So after doing some more digging I found this: http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=81492

which said QUOTE "After a morning of fiddling about, I've worked out a way of performing the required secure erase function another way."

so I followed this tutorial, launch Gparted deleted all partitions, typed "hdparm --security-erase NULL /dev/sda

and got this Input/Output error

http://i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww60/treesmoker08/SDC10569.jpg

so after panicing that I'd just deleted both working partitions without even securely erasing them, I googled the problem and after a quick search I found these two threads on Gparted commands: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdparm and http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...se-for-Windows

and as you can tell from the next Screenshot, I tried pretty much even command with no success

http://i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww60/treesmoker08/SDC10563-1.jpg

I'm guessing that the "NO such file or directory" is just because those commands are for hdparm that is installed onto the system and command prompt is opened with the hdparm directory (with the files that are needed) correct???

My problem is, even after throwing in the towl, Creating a new partition table, and a new NTFS primary partition, and thinking sod it i'll just use Dban (which i'm familiar with) I get this:

http://i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww60/treesmoker08/SDC10567.jpg

and even after using the Windows 7 recovery console CD, and using retail windows 7 installation disk I still get this loop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8tK0QwUzo0

And after running onboard diagnostics I get this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAsDlCcYHNQ

PLEASE HELP ME! Is this just saying I've killed the HDD for good? can some expert get the HDD working again? or is this hardware related? i.e laptops is completly dead, not just the HDD?

Hopefully I've supplied you with enough information but if not, let me know and Thank you to anyone that can help/ give advice/give bad news, think i'll just stick with HDDerase for wiping the desktop Harddrive.

2 Reply by pitdicker

  • pitdicker
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  • Registered: 2010-08-18
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Re: So Who's The #1 Expert With Gparted......Because This WILL Test You!

Hello treesmoker,

I am not familiar with the programs and error codes you mentioned but hopefully can say something useful wink

I don't think you have broken your laptop, only the Windows recovery cd doesn't now what to do with the hard disk.

If you run gparted again, you can see some info about your hdd.
In the top left corner of the window you can see the name of the hdd, probably something /dev/sda or /dev/hdb etc.
If you want to wipe the drive, enter this name in that hdparm command (I have no idea if it works)

If, in gparted, you click on 'view > hard disk information' you can see the brand and type of the drive.
Just google it to see if it is a ssd (I guess not)

Next, go to 'station > create partitionlabel' and make a msdos label
Then make a new partition, and make sure you give it a boot flag.

When you run the Windows cd is should work now.
Succes!