Low-formating my laptop's HDD

[Bellzemos]

Hello!

Is it advisable to low-format my new Sony VAIO's Seagate Momentus 7200 RPM 500 GB SATA-II HDD using the Magic Boot Disk v2.0 with MHDD utility before making a clean install of Windows 7 x64?

Thank you!

[BlackST]

Only if you want to be extra sure that the disk will be sanitized and you want to completely destroy any info on the disk (safety purpose). BUT if you erase it, you'll lose ALSO any recovery partition if present. SO, if you don't have OS disks / recovery disks AND the recovery partition is needed , you'll be in trouble.
If there is no need and disk is fine, it is only a loss of time.

[Sean2]

Sony VAIO notebooks don't have recovery DVDs but a hidden recovery partition. So you should first create a recovery DVD before wiping the HDD.

[Bellzemos]

The HDD is fine, it's a new laptop but I quick-formated it already when I installed a fresh install of Windows 7 and the recovery partition is gone. I also have no recovery DVD but I have the drivers from the Sony site so I'll be alright. I'd like to format my HDD using MHDD because my touchpad isn't working since I made the first format and deleted the pre-installed Windows - and I think that the setting must have been stored somewhere on the HDD, maybe on some hidden partition. Thank you for your suggestions, I will format it using the Magic Boot Disk v2.0.

[BlackST]

No , it's something else i.e. a driver problem. Anyway clearing the 1st and last million lba should be sufficient for your job instead of hours-lasting erase.

[Bellzemos]

I tried to low-format my HDD but MHDD said that my drive doesn't support LBA and when I tried to scan it it said that my drive isn't ready. Why is that so? Is low-formatting a laptop drive different than formatting a desktop drive? I don't think so... Please help.

[pclab]

It's because your HD is Sata. You need to disable Sata AHCI on BIOS to your HD be recognized by MHDD.

[Bellzemos]

I can't do that in my Sony VAIO BIOS, there's no option. Is there any other way?

[Bellzemos]

Is there any other way to do this with my kind of HDD? Anyone, please?

[Vulcan]

I tried to low-format my HDD

You can't do anything like a true low-level format with normal consumer tools anyway... Therefore for your specific task, the MHDD tool is overkill IMHO, and has the limitation that you have found (as pclab described) - you need to use a specific BIOS setting with SATA disks. Effectively, you are talking about wanting to do a full erase.

When you were given the suggestion to disable AHCI for the SATA disks, you replied:

I can't do that in my Sony VAIO BIOS, there's no option.

It may help you to get more advice from readers, if you explain exactly what options there are, related to the disks & disk interface, in your laptop BIOS. Perhaps you could attach some small screenshots (not full 12Mp+ photos ) of your laptop setup screen, in case someone here recognises the correct BIOS option, but which is using a different name on your laptop.

Is there any other way?

Yes, several.

If you want to do a full erase (which as BlackST said, will take a while...), then there are several alternative approaches, but they depend on your skills & available equipment. Some examples of alternatives include:

- If you have a different desktop PC available, then install this hard disk in that desktop system as an additional disk, and use either MHDD (after changing BIOS settings on that PC - the required setting is more likely to be visible there).

- Or in that desktop PC (even without any BIOS setting change), with your disk installed as an additional disk, use any other tool which can do normal erase from within Windows (e.g. WD LifeGuard or Eraser - both free).

- Or in your laptop, download & use a bootable LiveCD version of Linux (e.g. Knoppix etc.). If that recognises your laptop hard disk (which is likely), then use the "dd" utility - exact command line varies depending on your laptop configuration.

Other readers might think of even more alternatives...

[Bellzemos]

It seems that MHDD won't do for my laptop's HDD. I've used the MHDD tool a couple of times on my older desktops and it worked like a charm.

My VAIO laptop's BIOS has no options at all regarding HDD. It's really a nonsense this VAIO BIOS.

I have no desktop or another laptop available.

Maybe a low-format would rally be an overkill but I need something better than the quick format that Windows 7 offers before the installation.

Is there any simpler way than the Linux variant you mentioned? I downloaded Seagate DiscWizard (my laptop's HDD is Seagate too) but I don't know if I can help myself with it.

If anyone knows how could I do it please tell me. Thank you!

[drc]

Formatting it isn't going to make the touchpad start working

[Vulcan]

I need something better than the quick format that Windows 7 offers before the installation.

I haven't seen any explanation of exactly why you believe you need something to erase the previous data, but to answer your question: You could do a full Win7 format - that erases the whole of the selected partition (drive letter) (unlike WinXP format). I've linked to the MS article on this, in a previous posting. That Win7 full format is not exactly the same as erasing the whole of the physical disk (depending on how you partition the disk), but it may be good enough for your purposes.

[Bellzemos]

I found out about the diskpart tool and run a clean all command on my 500 GB HDD. Any idea how long will it take to finish (approx.)? Thank you.

[Bellzemos]

It took about an hour and a half...

About the touchpad - very interesting! When I rebooted the laptop with the Windows 7 DVD in the optical drive and the DVD loaded - at the first screen, when the mouse/touchpade pointer shows itself the touchpad was working for about two seconds (I was able to move the pointer!). But then it stopped again. It's like something (really don't know what because the whole HDD is low-formatted using Diskpart's Clean all command) disabled the touchpad after the two seconds. Maybe this could be a hind: when I firsto got my brand new VAIO I disabled the touchpad after a few days and then later one quick-formated the HDD when installing an other version of Windows 7 x64 (not the preinstalled one). I tought that maybe it's possible that the "disabled touchpad setting" got saved on some hidden place (hidden partition?) so I low-formated it now to get to the bottom of this mystery. But it's still not working. At least I know that it's not a hardware problem. Does anyone know what could it be and how could I re-enable it again?

Thank you!

[Vulcan]

I tought that maybe it's possible that the "disabled touchpad setting" got saved on some hidden place (hidden partition?) so I low-formated it now to get to the bottom of this mystery.

You were already told in this thread (more than once) that any touchpad issue is not related to the hard disk... (and to avoid possible confusion, you didn't really low-level format the disk - but that's irrelevant to this situation).

[...] it's still not working. At least I know that it's not a hardware problem. Does anyone know what could it be and how could I re-enable it again?

Touchpad problems are definitely off-topic for this HDDGuru board. I suggest you to either research it yourself, or contact your source of support for this new laptop (Sony? Your local dealer? Place of purchase?).