Re^3: OT: in vivo sublimification of a windows machine

I discovered this when I tried to reinstall trial software which had 1 month trial period. I was amazed. I did format /f (or whatever the switch was to force a real format) with the "Rescue Disk", made by Windows. I should have had a totally reformatted partition. I reinstalled Windows, and then the trial software. Lo-and-behold ..... the trial software said I had used up my 30 days. What? Where was it stored? I had to use an old Dos6 boot floppy to format it out, and since I use linux to zero it out. Then the trial software went in again. So the question is.... what else are they storing?

I remember googling around for what was going on and it was hinted that Windows will do something like mark certain disk sectors as bad, then hide information in them. It's formatting and delete programs will then skip those areas, leaving them to be found by the next install. Dos6 was the last version of any microsoft product which just did what you wanted. And of course, linux isn't bought off by the government spies yet, although I am becoming increasingly wary as big money moves into controlling the various linux distributions.

I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh

Comment on Re^3: OT: in vivo sublimification of a windows machine

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Re^4: OT: in vivo sublimification of a windows machine by diotalevi (Canon) on Jan 16, 2006 at 17:37 UTC
It's well known that Microsoft fdisk overwrites only the first cylinder. Non-Microsoft fdisk typically overwrites only the first sector and if it's good, it should only rewrite the few bytes required in that first sector. Format whether "quick" or "thorough" doesn't really go through the work of zeroing out your drive. The good/bad data areas are a file system function. The part you should really watch out for is using drive's S.M.A.R.T. code to put things into "known bad" places or that leave things in "known bad" places. ⠤⠤ ⠙⠊⠕⠞⠁⠇⠑⠧⠊	[reply]
Re^5: OT: in vivo sublimification of a windows machine by zentara (Cardinal) on Jan 16, 2006 at 18:04 UTC
I was talking about format, in addtion to fdisk. I don't use Microsoft much anymore, but when I was learning, there was a switch for format , "format C: /f " IIRC, the /f meant it would actually write "f''s to the entire partition, essentially writing 1's to the entire partition. Dos 6's format was the last one that did it right, in my observation, concerning overwriting sectors marked bad, etc. I stopped using Windows for this very reason. I never looked back, and don't want to deal with Microsoft secrecy anymore. I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh	[reply]
Re^6: OT: in vivo sublimification of a windows machine by diotalevi (Canon) on Jan 16, 2006 at 18:07 UTC
I could give you a debug.exe recipe to do what you wanted but it's much easier to suggest that you boot to linux of a floppy, usb, or cd and use dd against the drive. ⠤⠤ ⠙⠊⠕⠞⠁⠇⠑⠧⠊	[reply]
Re^4: OT: in vivo sublimification of a windows machine by Anonymous Monk on Jan 13, 2006 at 15:13 UTC
I remember googling around for what was going on and it was hinted that Windows will do something like mark certain disk sectors as bad, Probably written by the guy that was behind the grassy knoll, hosted on a system housed in the same hanger where they shot the "Moon landings" footage.	[reply]
Re^5: OT: in vivo sublimification of a windows machine by zentara (Cardinal) on Jan 13, 2006 at 17:18 UTC
Yes sir, Mr. NSA coverup spin doctor. I got a laugh out of the government's press release about the guy who blew the whistle on the current illegal Bush wiretaps. They said " he was released because he had paranoid psychotic delusions. ha ha. I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh	[reply]