Need help here

[Annoyed]

That too is possible. I read it more as she wanted to be sure no one could steal information (one gets "trained" to read things certain ways...).

It is indeed possible for malware to survive a high level drive formatting. ( format c:\ for windows users)
They can hide themselves in the BIOS firmware, or in hidden areas of a drive. As far as the drives go, that's why it's a good idea to do a low level format, which consists of writing 1's and 0's to each individual storage unit on the drive, which is basically what a secure erase does.

This society will trade ANYTHING for convenience. Some time ago, one of the MB manufacturers had a feature on their boards where you couldn't flash the bios without physically setting a jumper between two pins on the motherboard. It simply wasn't writeable. But that was too difficult, so it went away, leaving boards open to attack.

 

[Joelist]

One interesting thing is with both BIOS and traditional HDD boot sectors going away some of those malware attack vectors are not there on the newer PCs anymore. UEFI is what a lot of new PCs ship with and soon enough it will be what they all ship with. Likewise SSDs are getting inexpensive enough that OEMs are starting to use them by default in laptops.

Tech keeps moving

 

[Jim of WVa]

It is indeed possible for malware to survive a high level drive formatting. ( format c:\ for windows users)
They can hide themselves in the BIOS firmware, or in hidden areas of a drive. As far as the drives go, that's why it's a good idea to do a low level format, which consists of writing 1's and 0's to each individual storage unit on the drive, which is basically what a secure erase does.

This society will trade ANYTHING for convenience. Some time ago, one of the MB manufacturers had a feature on their boards where you couldn't flash the bios without physically setting a jumper between two pins on the motherboard. It simply wasn't writeable. But that was too difficult, so it went away, leaving boards open to attack.

What about the TSA? I suppose that air travel is really not a major part of very many people's lives.

 

[Annoyed]

What about the TSA? I suppose that air travel is really not a major part of very many people's lives.

It's not a major part of my life, that's for sure. Given time and a choice, I'd rather drive wherever I have to go.
In my life, I've travelled twice by commercial airliner, once about 20 years ago, and once about 2 years ago. The TSA screening was a minor irritation, no more, in comparison to the royal P.I.T.A. that the entire experience was.

And the flights 20 years ago were far, far more pleasant experiences than the recent trip was.

Flying itself is fun; the takeoff, flight and landing are physical experiences that can not be duplicated otherwise. But as done by the airline industry today, flying is a very miserable experience best avoided.

 

[Jim of WVa]

It's not a major part of my life, that's for sure. Given time and a choice, I'd rather drive wherever I have to go.
In my life, I've travelled twice by commercial airliner, once about 20 years ago, and once about 2 years ago. The TSA screening was a minor irritation, no more, in comparison to the royal P.I.T.A. that the entire experience was.

And the flights 20 years ago were far, far more pleasant experiences than the recent trip was.

Flying itself is fun; the takeoff, flight and landing are physical experiences that can not be duplicated otherwise. But as done by the airline industry today, flying is a very miserable experience best avoided.

Same here. I have not been on a commercial airline since 2000. I like to drive.

 

[Overmind One]

Same here. I have not been on a commercial airline since 2000. I like to drive.

I agree. I only fly when forced by business, and I have to be sedated.

 

[Tripler]

Since this is the need help here thread I wonder if you guys could help me with resetting my 3 ssd's . I want to put them back to like new again and bought and downloaded Parted Magic . I only run Linux Mint now ( on a new WD 1t sata dr ) and I am still learning this OS .
The Parted Magic is an iso image right ?. It is on my 64gb USB stick .I have tried to make it become a bootable usb by unzipping it to the usb and to load it but I am stuck there . It will not become a bootable usb . I installed Unetbootin from software manager and have followed these instructions (http://www.techulator.com/resources/4948-How-install-Parted-Magic-from-USB-drive.aspx). I am lost as to what to do next .

Thanks

 

[Joelist]

Actually you unzip Parted Magic on your hard drive first.

Then download and run Unetbootin if you are following their directions. Start up Unetbootin and on the screen select diskimage instead of Distribution. Select ISO and navigate to the place on your hard drive where you put the ISO. Then select USB Drive under Type and select the Drive Letter (from Windows Explorer) where it is showing. Then click OK and it should format the USB drive and set up Parted Magic on it.

Then, leave the USB key plugged into the computer and reboot it. Select Advanced Startup (usually hitting F8 or F12 gets you there) and select the USB drive letter as the one to boot from.

 

[Tripler]

Alrighty then ,,, . here goes . I will give that a shot . Thanks Joe

 

[Tripler]

 

[Tripler]

 

[Joelist]

I see your ISO right there.

Next step is to get Unetbootin for Linux and start it up. Then you can use Unetbootin to put the ISO on the USB drive.

 

[Tripler]

I was able to do a differnt method and have it install to the usb . So now it is up and running but which method do I use to reset my ssd's ?

 

[Tripler]

I went with the first choice for my first ssd . Corsiar Neutron 256GB

 

[Tripler]

 

[Joelist]

Per PCWorld:

Boot the disc, and click on the Start-type button at the lower left. Hover over the System Tools option and select Erase Disk in the menu that appears. A window of various erasure options will pop up; the external commands work well with traditional hard drives, but you should select Internal: Secure Erase command writes zeroes to entire data area to wipe your SSD. Click Continue, and then pick a doomed drive and click OK to send its data into the abyss.

If Parted Magic warns you that your drive is frozen, put your computer to sleep as suggested and turn it back on and rerun the utility. If you're asked whether you want to run an Enhanced Secure Erase, click No; you'll want to stick to the tried-and-true standard version.

 

[Tripler]

Thanks for those tips Joe

 

[Joelist]

No problem!

 

[Tripler]

What an excellent program and freaking fast also . I am using it to surf here also lol .

 

[Tripler]

Since I will be building a new PC come the fall I was wondering if it would be possible to run Windows XP / Windows 7 / and Windows 10 all on the same machine . This will be my all windows machine for Flight Sim and I have flightsim programs that only run in XP so that is my reason for wanting this setup if possible .

Thanks