that one slipped by me...

NO...

reformatting does not write data to every sector, rather sets up a filesystem that the OS is able to see and sets all areas of the disc as being writable (i.e. as if there is no data whatsoever on the HDD, which for a reformat there's still plenty of organized 0's and 1's)...like the ancient, 4GB limited fat32, and the modern NTFS formats....

using the previously linked to Darin's Boot and Nuke program will overwrite the whole disc so that one can start over again cleanly...as cleanly as using a shiny fresh out of the box HDD...said drive might not last as long as a brand spanking new one (though with recent rumblings in the tech community this is very arguable), but it will be as clean as one!

and this information should really be applied anytime a user needs a new, clean start....'things' can reside on a HDD forever if not actively overwritten, and even then if its a real nasty bugger it will just move out of the way, as it were, as the writing heads approach it!

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So Long and Thanks for All the Files
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