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

Ha ha

I can see some of you folks are very comfy with the command line etc. Maybe use to working with dos or maybe linox where you have to do a lot of this stuff manually. Many of us are not so smart and used say xp for its ease of use.

I have seen that thingy in Windows 7 showing the drives. You can defrag from it too. Cant remember how I got to it now. But I was thinking, and this thread has me thinking more on it..

Cant I simply from right there. Tell it to reformat say my sataII drive with old Windows 7 install on it. I think from right there is a more deep format than just right clicking the drive from computer and quick format/partition etc. This thing has something like it in xp. I like it it seems more deep at defrag or reformatting. I think It should be more simple for us others just to tell it to reformat from there.

And if say defraggin. You can watch it move files around etc. Where the normal defrag deally- just says- step so and so, but can not see progress etc.

You guys are very helpful. Maybe you forget sometimes, Most of us are not at your level of expertise. The simple stuff and or click and go, is way more easy for most of us.. Ha ha I have not had to mess with dos stuff since flashing bios back in the 98 days or something. I always avoid the command line if I can. I think most people do.. That is why we buy windows or xp etc. We do not use linox and are not programmers etc..

I guess what I am saying is. Maybe 3/4 of folks are in my boat. WE do not have your skills or are afraid of the command line. We need more simple ways of doing these things, and tho it might not be as deep as using the command line methods.

This looks complicated to most of us less or normal folks. Maybe if I had another pc going or had a printer I could print extra instructions for certain things. Click and go or reboot etc. Is way more easy for the most of us..

Just saying is all..

Thanks..

Hello Ezeht,

While similar to "format", "clean" and "clean all" is not the same. They do a more thorough job of wiping a hard drive than a simple "quick format" and "full format" does.

I like to try to make the tutorials as informative and simple to use as I can. Especially trying to make advanced stuff easy to do for all skill levels.

Any feedback or questions that you may have about using any part of a tutorial is always welcomed to be posted in that tutorial thread. We will be happy to help with anything that you may be having trouble with.

I use all of this to update the tutorials as needed to help others avoid the same problem or issue.

Please just let us know.

Shawn Brink

Thanks brink.

I have to say. You folks here, are the most nice and very most helpful I have seen any place in a long time. I can figure a lot out just reading. I do ask questions sometimes tho. Can talk a lot and poor typing or grammar etc. 2 finger typing.

Ya I got it was a better clean than a normal reformat. But it is reformat a drive with my last Windows 7 install and make it my data storage and get this install registered is what I am trying to do. I have no top secret stuff that needs to be military or better cleaned.

I do hope I have my system and drivers set up right on this new build tho. gregrocker has been very helpful in a thread I started.

You folks just try and help- This forum is great if not the very best on the net..

Thanks a lot folks..

Can "Clean All" be run on two separate drives at the same time? Is there a way to have it report the amount of time it took?

Hello Barefoot,

Sorry, but it can only be ran on one drive at a time.

I'm not sure if there's a way (ex: log file) to see how long it took though.

hi this is my first post,and im due to format and clean my drive,i have 2 drives not partitioned but separated,so i use the 40GB drive just to store things,and obviously the main drive to work as main drive,

so i need to clean and what is safe the DBAN or the Clean All

hope i explained well

Hello Shankly, and welcome to Seven Forums.

If you wanted to wipe those two hard drives out completly, then using the "Clean All" command would do a much more thorough job of wiping them clean. It will also take longer to run this command though.

hi,thanks,so i need to format my c drive only,the otherone is clean,so its better this tool than dban or safer?i want to be sure that after the cleanup i should install win 7 again freely and that the drive is visible,and after the clean what happenes?it asks me to install windows?

so with clean all the disc become as new?or there should be traces?

Shankly,

I do not know how well dban cleans a hard drive or not. No matter what you use to clean the drive with, it may still be slightly possible for a true professional (ex: CIA) to still be able to get some data off with the right high dollar equipment unless you burn the HDD until it melts.

When you use "Clean All" on a hard drive, the hard drive will all be "unallocated space" afterwards that you could then select to install Windows 7 on or format and use as a data drive. The average person is not going to be able to get anything off the drive afterwards other than what you install. The key is the number of writes on a drive after something has been deleted. The more writes, the less chance of it being able to be recovered.

I'm sorry but I followed every step carefully and it just won't work... Here's a picture of the commands... Thanks for any help. I want to convert back to a basic disk, that's all. But nothing is working...