Hard Drive Formating Tools???

[Street Hawk]

Hi Guys,

I am going to throw this one at ya all for some umm lets say options..

I have had and used partiton magic 8 (Bootable Dos based CD) to wipe, re-partition, activate drive partitions etc.. i have found this to be a great program & tool to use in DOS without having to boot into an O/S. i have been using this programs for years now & i need a change!

I have noticing that i am having problems with formatting some
SATA drives using partition magic 8 and having problems deleting protected partitions on some laptop drives (those being the partitions with the recovery files on) which i just dont want on there but want to customize my own partitions on my hard drive. so.. my question is..

what other programs are out there and are basically the best to use that can do all of the above without any issues? have u used any? and what do u recommend? your answers would be much appriciated as its time for a change :D

[cunny]

I just use windows setup to format drives, not done any the dos way for a long time now

[Street Hawk]

Yeah i have done that before in the past but still like to dominate my hard drive partitons via DOS as i have alot more control over what i do when preping the hard drive as your kinda limited with what you can do when you let the O/S do it. and at times i dont want to use the hard drive as a bootable drive just as a slave for storage etc, there must be something newer out there which is better than Partition magic 8 and i guess thats my mission to find a program to do that.

[ManofScience]

a lot of the manufacturers have 'disk utilities' or 'low level format tools' - thats what we use. DOS based programs that format disks properly by low level formatting them. Seagates for example is called 'DiscWizard', WD's 'DataLifeGuard Diagnostics' - most are floppy disk based and will create a bootable floppy disk.

I bet they could even be on Hiren's BootCD

[smoggy]

Have a look at Acronis disk director suite free trial here http://www.acronis.co.uk/promo/ADDS/disk-director.html?source=uk_google&ad=adds&c=3058463034&k=acronis%20disk%20director&gclid=COHns8_tz5oCFQOaFQoddBXk2g
or paragon hard disk manager 30 day trial here http://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/

I use Acronis because of the gui it guides you through any operation even if you are a complete novice (like me)

[Street Hawk]

Hi & thanks for your replies...

unfortunatly manofscience it is very rare i use a floppy disc now, but i have however used some of the manufactures tools & utils. they can be handy for low level formatting & recovering a drive.. Hiren's CD i have heard alot about this and did download it about a year or so ago, but didnt get much time to explore it, might be worth another go i guess, worth a try.

Hey smoggy, thanks for the tip, i use Acronis from time to time for creating system images but, have found it does have its moments when trying to re-install the image again, (corrupt image error 5mins after i have created it). but again like "manofscience" ill take a look & give it a try.. thanks guys... anyone else with more idea's stick on a post ill be interested to see how many options i have.

thanks in advance

[ManofScience]

i'm sure with a bit of fudging they would install on a USB

[chroma]

a small linux install (like knopix) on a thumbdrive and put cfdisk in /bin

then just run it from a root account. cfdisk will allow you to partition and format anything in almost any filesystem imaginable, it figures that the user knows best, even when in most cases users really dont.

[grizzlyt]

Try Parted Magic (http://partedmagic.com/). It's a Linux Live CD that you can install on a USB stick .
If you want the easy option try the Windows program unetbootin (http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/)
http://sourceforge.net/dbimage.php?id=167328
to install it through the ISO image (you have to d/l it first) or a web based download if you have a speedy connection.

After the Reboot you have to select to boot from the USB disk, then you are greeted by a graphic boot menu and just let it boot with the default options.
At the end of the procedure you are in a really nice GUI with lots of tools, Gparted is obviously the main app.You can surf with Firefox and all the standard tools like FTP and telnet.

What's cool it is also capable of handling Raid type disks and a whole lot of exotic disk formats.

It's a full system so it weights about 80 Mb.

[opsmonkey]

if you can get hold of it, Ontrack Disk (http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.co.uk/hard-drive-software/diskmanager.aspx) manager is the best i've ever used.. i used to have the 3.5" DOS Boot Disk but i havent had a PC with a floppy drive for years so i've misplaced it.. :(

What make is your drive..? My new one is a Samsung so i downloaded this.. (http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/support/utilities/Support_HUTIL.html)
If your unsure of the make you can try this... (http://www.my-install.com/prog/System-Utilities-File-Disk-Management/28625/HDD-Low-Level-Format-Tool.html)

[Street Hawk]

Hiya guys thanks for the replies.. as you mentioned Manofscience the usb bootable option is the road i think would be best do go down.

Hey Chroma thanks for your reply but unfortunately i am a total linux virgin to be blunt & seems that is also another road i need to explore.

Hey Grizzlyt thanks for the info i think ill try option 2 for now and see how i get on with unetbootin sounds like a challenge and sounds like the god of all partition magic's & think that will be 1st on my d/l hit-list.

Hey opsmonkey again thanks its another option for me to try, i have various drives all different makes & i usually need a quick tool to format and prep any hard drive i throw at the software really, as installing the O/s and the drivers + all the software usually takes me a couple of hours unless its the same system which i can take a image of the drive after i have configed a hdd with O/S ... again... thanks for all your input guys its helped alot... ill keep you posted on what i managed to feel comfortable with using as soon as i get some time to play about with the software.. but being bank holiday weekend im pretty sure the mrs has plans for me :-( cheers guys much appriciated :-)

[sipe]

Hiren's boot cd have very good tolls for low level formating

[fince]

Hi Guys,

I am going to throw this one at ya all for some umm lets say options..

I have had and used partiton magic 8 (Bootable Dos based CD) to wipe, re-partition, activate drive partitions etc.. i have found this to be a great program & tool to use in DOS without having to boot into an O/S. i have been using this programs for years now & i need a change!

I have noticing that i am having problems with formatting some
SATA drives using partition magic 8 and having problems deleting protected partitions on some laptop drives (those being the partitions with the recovery files on) which i just dont want on there but want to customize my own partitions on my hard drive. so.. my question is..

what other programs are out there and are basically the best to use that can do all of the above without any issues? have u used any? and what do u recommend? your answers would be much appriciated as its time for a change :D

Now that there are lots of securities with laptops as you can lock the hdd to the unit or a password(os related). its harder to advise without more info.if your using vista or other software like bitlock your likely to lock the hdd and may need to replace the hdd. but if its basic xp with os password then you should be ok formating it...