Restoring

[vibutx]

Hey guys. Sorry if i posted this in wrong section i didnt know were to post.

Well ive had my toshiba laptop for about 3 years and i was thinking today of rebooting it. Like erasing everything from my hardrive. But i cant seem to find the restore CD's. Is there another way to do it or if i can find anything on the net.

Thanks guys

[DutchMaster]

The laptop doen't have to be installed by the recovery CD's per se.
Every flavor of Windows (XP/2000/2003) or Linux can be installed. As long as you have a licensed copy and a CD-ROM drive.

Getting copies of the recovery CD's is another thing. The best thing is to give Toshiba support a ring and see if they can help you. All be it that it might be difficult for one thats out of warranty.

[vibutx]

I dont want to install the OS. There was CD's that came with the laptop to erase everything on the hardrive. but i cant find them. i was wondering if i can get anything on the net.

[DutchMaster]

What you're looking for is a harddrive eraser, right? Best to get one that does low-level-format.
There are dozen utilties available. I have not much experience with those utilties as I mainly use the tools made available by the hardware manufactor of the harddisk (Seagate Seatools or Maxtor maxblast)

Most only boot by floppy, but some have CD images (ISO) available as well, so you can boot from CD-ROM.

[mateo leet-o]

http://www.killdisk.com/
for a low level format
oh and welcome to techimo

[DutchMaster]

Here is a list of all (I think ) Harddrive manufactors and there download site for such tools:


Seagate: Zero Fill option in DiscWizard Starter Edition
www.seagate.com/support/disc/utils.html

Maxtor Maxblast
www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/index.htm

Fujitsu: FJ-IDE Drive Initializer Utility
www.fel.fujitsu.com/home/drivers.asp?L=en&CID=1

Western Digital: Data Lifeguard Diagnostic
http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

Samsung: SUTIL
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Hard...ties/index.htm

IBM(Hitachi): DFT utility
www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm


Toshiba installs the harddisks from above manufactors under their own name. You have to figure out what the OEM is to use the correct utility.

There are third party tools available too! See mateo leet-o's post

[vibutx]

Thanks alot. I think im just going to call toshiba to send me the restore CD's.