Windows 7: Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

Brink · 03 Jan 2010

How to "Clean" or "Clean All" a Disk with the Diskpart Command

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Click here to read the entire tutorial

Last edited by Brink; 28 Jan 2013 at 12:02 PM..

Brink · 05 Mar 2012

Hello Sfeg, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Yes, either "clean" or "clean all" command will completely wipe everything from a disk. If you are unable to use it from within Windows 7 because of the virus, then you should be able to at boot.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

sfeg · 05 Mar 2012

Thank you for the welcome, Shawn.

Is the MBR automatically part of the DiskPart wipe, or do I have to specify/alter instructions?

Does this info from Microsoft say otherwise?
A Description of the Diskpart Command-Line Utility

"Diskpart permits certain partition deletion operations that are blocked by the snap-in. For example, you can use Diskpart to delete MBR OEM partitions. However, these partitions often contain files that are important to the platform operation. Diskpart blocks the deletion of the current system, boot, or paging volumes and partitions. Also, Diskpart blocks deletion of the partitions that underlie dynamic disks."

Thanks.

Brink · 05 Mar 2012

Using the "Clean" command at boot on the disk will wipe the disk completely.

sfeg · 05 Mar 2012

Can anyone help on my related Q:

If both a HD and the motherboard firmware are infected by a trojan virus, does a Bios flash with updates take care of the Mobo?

But which one to do first? It seems that upon format/reinstall, the HD could get infected immediately again by the Mobo, and vice versa for the Mobo.

I'm thinking HD wipe, then Mobo flash, then HD format/reinstall... still not completely foolproof, but does that make sense or not?

This Tom's article, especially the last comment on 2/4/12, are disheartening!
Webroot Discovers BIOS Rootkit

Brink · 05 Mar 2012

sfeg,

That will need to be posted as a new thread in the System Security forum area since it's not related to this tutorial. This way you will get the best help for that issue there.

sfeg · 05 Mar 2012

I actually did post it there. Thanks. Here's a wipe/format question, though:

If I use Diskpart or another utility (such as KillDisk or DBAN), is it possible to wipe the HD first but don't format it yet? (Or do all wipes also format?)

Then I would do the format to NTFS later, after flashing Mobo.

While still unformatted, will the HD be un-writable, and thus un-infectable?

Brink · 05 Mar 2012

Sfeg,

Yes, when you use the "Clean" command, it will leave the Disk as blank "unallocated space" and unusable until formated.

ICit2lol · 20 Mar 2012

Great stuff again I have heap of old drives I thought a format would suffice but then found I could recover stuff now this is just what I wanted.

Thanks so much

I meant to add is there a way of doing this so that I am left with just the OS intact? - handy when one hasn't got the installation disk?

Brink · 20 Mar 2012

Hello John,

Unless the OS is on a separate physical HDD than the one you wanted to use "clean" or "clean all" on, then no. They will wipe everything on a HDD including all partitions/volumes.

mjf · 20 Mar 2012

It may have been mentioned earlier but you can run the tutorial from the command prompt of a system repair disk if you can't or don't want to boot into the OS.

Windows 7: Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command problems?