Is there a command line tool to wipe a drive with dynamic partitions?

Tried...

HDDerase

and

SDelete


Is there anything short of booting to a Windows XP disk and wiping partitions or some extensive DISKPART commands?

It'd be nice if there was a simple command line tool to do that off a bootable usb.

Anyone know of any free tool? I know Boot and Nuke but it takes too long.

Pretty much want to be able to quickly get rid of all dynamic partitions so Windows can be installed on the drive.

Since you dont care about securely erasing the disk you could use DBAN on one pass and stop it after 5 or 10 min. That is enough time to get rid of the MBR. Then when you go to install windows just have it do a quick format on the drive.

Another good option would be a bootable cd like http://partedmagic.com/doku.php?id=start You could use Gparted inside of it, or some of the other format tools. I personally would use this.

Not really sure why you'd want to boot into win XP and use a command line tool for this....
What's the layout of the disk that has the dynamic partition? What's the model number of the disk (just want to make sure it's not adv. format or bigger than 2tb that needs GPT). Do you want all the partitions wiped or selective partition deletion?

If the disk is MBR format and if you just want to have a blank drive fast for OS installation, the easiest way is to boot the computer with any liveCD linux and either do a dd to wipe the partition table and MBR record and/or use fdisk to delete each partition one by one.

Only the MBR/partition info are altered/resetted, the actual data will be overwritten once you create new partitions from OS installation process.

To be safe you might want to remove all other drives from the system and leave only the one you want to blank out.

Quote from boltman2007 : Tried... HDDerase and SDelete Is there anything short of booting to a Windows XP disk and wiping partitions or some extensive DISKPART commands? It'd be nice if there was a simple command line tool to do that off a bootable usb. Anyone know of any free tool? I know Boot and Nuke but it takes too long. Pretty much want to be able to quickly get rid of all dynamic partitions so Windows can be installed on the drive.

Quote from teetee1 : Not really sure why you'd want to boot into win XP and use a command line tool for this.... What's the layout of the disk that has the dynamic partition? What's the model number of the disk (just want to make sure it's not adv. format or bigger than 2tb that needs GPT). Do you want all the partitions wiped or selective partition deletion? If the disk is MBR format and if you just want to have a blank drive fast for OS installation, the easiest way is to boot the computer with any liveCD linux and either do a dd to wipe the partition table and MBR record and/or use fdisk to delete each partition one by one. Only the MBR/partition info are altered/resetted, the actual data will be overwritten once you create new partitions from OS installation process. To be safe you might want to remove all other drives from the system and leave only the one you want to blank out.

Actually the fastest way I found was to try an XP install and just let the install program delete all existing partitions.... Since XP doesn't know about Dynamic Drives that works then I can do a normal Windows 7 install. Its pretty fast. Can't do that with a Vista or 7 install disk.

I was just hoping there was an even faster way off a bootable usb.

Quote from boltman2007 : Actually the fastest way I found was to try an XP install and just let the install program delete all existing partitions.... Since XP doesn't know about Dynamic Drives that works then I can do a normal Windows 7 install. Its pretty fast. Can't do that with a Vista or 7 install disk. I was just hoping there was an even faster way off a bootable usb.

Ubuntu live cd and gparted which will do anything you could want to a disk drive.

Or

A bootable dos usb stick and some fdisk command (don't know what it would be but im sure there is one)

I've read that the Dynamic Disk Info is held at the end of the drive, in the last 1 Megabyte.

So, assuming that you don't care about the data on the drive, just erase the tail end of the drive.

"dd" is a common Unix/Linux/etc utility that can do it. On modern Linux, something like:sudo = SuperUser Do. That runs the following command with Superuser (full admin) power.

dd = data moving/copying utility with an undescriptive name

if = input file

/dev/zero = special zero file

of = output file

/dev/disk/by-id/ata-... = Replace "..." with the manufacturer, model and serial of the drive to erase (when typing the command, use autocomplete with TAB to see potential choices, or run "ls /dev/disk/by-id/ata*" first).

bs = block size, I chose to use 1MB as the unit

seek = start output offset by that many units (300000 * 1MB = 300GB)

So, that command erases everything past 300GB on the given disk. Adjust the seek parameter to erase more or less.

You can also use dd to erase the MBR and traditional partition table. "sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=... bs=512 count=1". That erases the first 512bytes of the target.

So how is sdelete [microsoft.com] not working from the command line?

Not recognizing the dynamic partitions...

Says I need a different version

Quote from redskull : I've read that the Dynamic Disk Info is held at the end of the drive, in the last 1 Megabyte. So, assuming that you don't care about the data on the drive, just erase the tail end of the drive. "dd" is a common Unix/Linux/etc utility that can do it. On modern Linux, something like: Code: sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-... bs=1MB seek=300000 sudo = SuperUser Do. That runs the following command with Superuser (full admin) power. dd = data moving/copying utility with an undescriptive name if = input file /dev/zero = special zero file of = output file /dev/disk/by-id/ata-... = Replace "..." with the manufacturer, model and serial of the drive to erase (when typing the command, use autocomplete with TAB to see potential choices, or run "ls /dev/disk/by-id/ata*" first). bs = block size, I chose to use 1MB as the unit seek = start output offset by that many units (300000 * 1MB = 300GB) So, that command erases everything past 300GB on the given disk. Adjust the seek parameter to erase more or less. You can also use dd to erase the MBR and traditional partition table. "sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=... bs=512 count=1". That erases the first 512bytes of the target.

Thanks I'll try that later see if its faster than booting into XP install

Quote from mrbobhcrhs : Ubuntu live cd and gparted which will do anything you could want to a disk drive. Or A bootable dos usb stick and some fdisk command (don't know what it would be but im sure there is one)

Thanks

Quote from LiquidRetro : Since you dont care about securely erasing the disk you could use DBAN on one pass and stop it after 5 or 10 min. That is enough time to get rid of the MBR. Then when you go to install windows just have it do a quick format on the drive. Another good option would be a bootable cd like http://partedmagic.com/doku.php?id=start You could use Gparted inside of it, or some of the other format tools. I personally would use this.

Thanks

Quote from teetee1 : Not really sure why you'd want to boot into win XP and use a command line tool for this.... What's the layout of the disk that has the dynamic partition? What's the model number of the disk (just want to make sure it's not adv. format or bigger than 2tb that needs GPT). Do you want all the partitions wiped or selective partition deletion? If the disk is MBR format and if you just want to have a blank drive fast for OS installation, the easiest way is to boot the computer with any liveCD linux and either do a dd to wipe the partition table and MBR record and/or use fdisk to delete each partition one by one. Only the MBR/partition info are altered/resetted, the actual data will be overwritten once you create new partitions from OS installation process. To be safe you might want to remove all other drives from the system and leave only the one you want to blank out.

Thanks

http://www.killdisk.com/

Quote from 420 : http://www.killdisk.com/

Tried says not compatible with version of Windows you are running....

Are you willing to pay? If so, try Acronis Disk Director 11 [acronis.com].