Lets say you have two drives

Drive A - You want to Copy

Drive B - Target Disk. Brand new disk. Unformatted.

Do you have to format the target drive (drive B) in order for the clone process to be successful?

Most new drives have FFs or 00s written on them.

But to be safe, and as a matter of standard procedure, ANY drive that is the clone target should be SECURE ERASED first!

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

No, not neccessary. ALL data is overwritten anyway (except for bad sectors, but these can be overwritten too if cloning device/software if properly configured).
New disks are (supposed to be)clean.
Only when you use an old disk you should wipe it, reformatting is not neccessary.


Dobre

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Murphy was an optimist

Datarecovery in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany
Datarecoverytools http://www.drtools.eu

Dobre,

We disagree.

I think you want to eliminate any possibility of cross-contamination of data. Better to be 100% certain than take chances, in my opinion . . .

Jono

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

Well, jono, as i wrote, a new disk is supposed to be clean.
But as we all know there are some people out there that try to be smart and sell old/refurb/tampered disks as new.
So, i agree, as a precaution wipe ALL disks before use.

Dobre

_________________
Murphy was an optimist

Datarecovery in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany
Datarecoverytools http://www.drtools.eu

Neat feature in the Deepspar imagers I use, an option after the clone to erase all uncloned sectors on the target and set the HPA to match the patient.

I always do this to eliminate all possibilities of cross contamination.

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

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Adatmentés - Data recovery