Should i use Dban or keep letting windows delete my drive?

[ERIC J]

I am getting ready to re-install windows 7 home on a 500g WD drive
that was given to me by a friend and wanted to ask if i should use Dban to give it a good scrubbing?
This HDD has been reformatted many times by the friend that gave it to me
so i heard that windows does not really do that great a job at deleting everything thoroughly?
I know i could just buy a new drive for around $60-80 but this drive is for a backup tower i built
and am a little bit low on cash right now to buy another one
so is windows good as good as something like Dban to get the drive back to as clean as it can be?

 

[Mattios]

Formatting is formatting. Using Windows or DBan - no difference. Just put your installation media in, and let the Windows installer erase the drive. You'll need to highlight it and click 'erase'

 

[USAFRet]

If it is for your continued personal use, what Windows does is fine. If you were selling it, I'd recommend DBAN.

 

[martinch]

Windows quick-format just removes the pointers to the files, without removing the file data. Deleting the partition just deletes the partition "structure" information. Doing a full format in Windows should write zeroes over the whole disk (this can be useful as it can make the disk find bad sectors and mark them as such), thus deleting everything. Using DBAN will overwrite the whole disk with 0s then 1s then 0s again (or something equivalent).

DBAN's main purpose is to make the data non-recoverable when disposing of the drive - otherwise it's overkill.

 

[ERIC J]

Windows quick-format just removes the pointers to the files, without removing the file data. Deleting the partition just deletes the partition "structure" information. Doing a full format in Windows should write zeroes over the whole disk (this can be useful as it can make the disk find bad sectors and mark them as such), thus deleting everything. Using DBAN will overwrite the whole disk with 0s then 1s then 0s again (or something equivalent).

DBAN's main purpose is to make the data non-recoverable when disposing of the drive - otherwise it's overkill.

So if i should get malware or virus and want to do a clean install just use windows full format?
that will assure me of not only getting the malware,virus' but also get everything off the disc for a clean install of windows?
I was reading that using DBAN just did a better job of cleaning the disc for clean install of windows? It was saying how windows doe not do tat great a job at getting a drive back to empty,
Like if you are installing the OS on a new HDD?

 

[Mattios]

When in the Windows installer, there is an option to 'erase drive' when you choose the drive to install Windows to. Click that and it will get rid of all viruses and anything at all that was on the drive.

 

[ERIC J]

When in the Windows installer, there is an option to 'erase drive' when you choose the drive to install Windows to. Click that and it will get rid of all viruses and anything at all that was on the drive.

and this option with windows will get the drive as clean and new as DBAN will on their quick erase option?

 

[Mattios]

Yes that is correct.