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View Full Version : What utility to wipe out MBR?

Rumrunner
03-31-05, 12:07 PM
What is a good utility to overwrite a hard drive + the MBR? Is there any way to do it free?

Rob
telexen
03-31-05, 12:13 PM
your hard drive's manufacturer probably has a tool to do this on their website.
Xaotic
03-31-05, 12:57 PM
Darik's Boot and Nuke among other secure disk deletion software will do this:

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

If you only need to clear the MBR and partition information, ZAP will clear the first 128 sectors.(Useful for quick clear of data. Some imaging programs have problems with existing partition information.)

http://www.microstorage.com/Harddriveinfo.htm#Zap
Rumrunner
03-31-05, 05:17 PM
Ok, cool...much appreciated. I shall give one of these a shot.

Rob
Nnyan
03-31-05, 06:31 PM
DBAN is great, and you can also check out Killdisk at http://www.killdisk.com/
kukyfrope
04-01-05, 01:11 AM
Make that a second vote for Killdisk, a great util.
willkill1337
04-01-05, 03:24 AM
When I reset my MBR, I booted XP to the Recovery Console using the CD and typed fixmbr in DOS, but that would just put in a new NT Loader, not wipe the MBR.
Xaotic
04-01-05, 05:51 AM
Boot to a DOS boot disk and type:

FDISK /MBR

for a simple clear of the MBR. This will work on most occasions. One exception I have found is in some disks that were originally FAT32. These can have corrupted data in the MBR that will not clear. ZAP will clear this condition.
Rumrunner
04-01-05, 09:52 PM
I went ahead and used killdisk since two of yall recommended it...it works great, I will recommend this to others too. It is so robust that you don't have to even read a read me to figure it out. The download is a beautiful bootable ISO, and all you have to do is boot. It is a well written program.

Thanks again all.