Diskpart a concurrent second call is made before the first is complete

I personally beleive in CLEAN ALL & Full FORMAT on all new installs & reinstalls.

On HD's that have linux as the old OS, CLEAN ALL & Full FORMAT will not delete all linux code.
NOTE: If you reboot before installing Windows, you will got a flash of Grub, this will be delete by the install of Windows.

Remove Linux the MS way:
How to Remove Linux and Install Windows XP

Brink said:

Usually just deleting all partitions on a disk until the disk is unallocated during installation, then selecting the unallocated disk to install Windows 7 to works great and is less time consuming than using "clean all" before installing Windows 7.

"clean all" is more of a secure x1 pass erase of a disk. It may be ok to use in bad cases (ex: virus) where the above doesn't help though. Plus, you would want to use "clean all" as little as possible on a SSD due to all the writes the command does.

You will notice the ms way is simply to delete the partitions to using either fdisk ( included with Linux ), or:

When you install Windows XP, the Linux partitions can be removed and new partitions created and formatted with the appropriate file system type during the installation process.

There is no mention of Clean All or equivalent.

As BFK rightly says, although windows is not aware of it - data can be recovered from the drive after quick format by undelete apps.

You could use Clean All before disposing of a drive, or selling your pc.

You can do a lot of things with fdisk - it is a very complete utility.

However, that is not what ms is telling you to do - they say simply delete the partitions - either with Linux own app. , or with XP partitioner during installation.

You could also do it with other 3rd party partitioning app. e.g. Paragon, Partition Wizard.

They have a wipe function of some kind as well - but you don't need to use it for this - simply delete the partitions and recreate as ntfs.

Because that is the link theog posted.

You can replace the word XP in the post above with the word Windows.

Si and Shawn: wiping the HD seems to overcome install failures sometimes where the boot sector is apparently corrupt. If it's not that, then something coinciding with Clean All being run will allow the install to proceed.

But there must be an easier way to wipe the boot sector by itself. Would a simple command run from DVD Command Line be sufficient?

Further, is it best practice to Clean All when serious infection is known or suspected to be on the disk? In not, what would suffice?

Not entirely sure what you are getting at Greg, but the Clean command may be what you are looking for.

I think Shawn has that in the tut about creating bootable flash drive.

I don't know the answer to the Malware question. I am no expert on malware - I have heard some nasties can resurrect themselves - so maybe not a bad idea to do it then - if only for the peace of mind.

Perhaps Jacee will know about that.