Selling T43p -- how to wipe C:\ but keep recovery partition?

T4x series specific matters only
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thefultonhow
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Selling T43p -- how to wipe C:\ but keep recovery partition?

#1 Post by thefultonhow » Sun Oct 26, 2008 5:26 pm

Long story short, I have a new computer, I am selling my T43p, and I want to make sure I don't have any sensitive data on the computer before I ship it off to its new owner. Is there a program that I could use to wipe just the C:\ partition but keep the MBR and recovery partition intact?
ThinkPad T43p 2668-CTO - P-M 760 (2.0 GHz), 2 GB RAM, FireGL V3200, 250 GB + 160 GB hard drives, DVD burner, 14" SXGA+, Intel 2915abg, BT, 9-cell, fingerprint reader, yadda yadda yadda

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#2 Post by Harryc » Sun Oct 26, 2008 6:08 pm


davidspalding
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#3 Post by davidspalding » Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:49 am

Why not restore it to the factory-shipped image....? You'll be overwriting the disk (some of it), and you can use third party programs to zero out the blank areas.
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thefultonhow
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#4 Post by thefultonhow » Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:17 pm

davidspalding wrote:Why not restore it to the factory-shipped image....? You'll be overwriting the disk (some of it), and you can use third party programs to zero out the blank areas.
I was planning on doing that, but I needed to know what kind of third-party program would do what I needed it to. Killdisk didn't work, BTW -- it froze during the boot process, which is apparently a relatively common problem. I ended up just writing a number of large image files to the entire drive.
ThinkPad T43p 2668-CTO - P-M 760 (2.0 GHz), 2 GB RAM, FireGL V3200, 250 GB + 160 GB hard drives, DVD burner, 14" SXGA+, Intel 2915abg, BT, 9-cell, fingerprint reader, yadda yadda yadda

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#5 Post by davidspalding » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:09 pm

Google for something called a "wipe disk" utility, Norton Utilities used to have a superb one (worked from a bootable floppy, even). You simply need something that overwrites the unused space with 1's, then 0's, then 1's.

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#6 Post by sarbin » Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:56 pm

thefultonhow wrote:
davidspalding wrote:Why not restore it to the factory-shipped image....? You'll be overwriting the disk (some of it), and you can use third party programs to zero out the blank areas.
I was planning on doing that.
what kind of hdd? if it's a hitachi, you could use the dft utility to test and wipe the drive prior to doing a reimage from product recovery disks.
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