subject: Why Use Zero-fill On Hard Drive [print this page] When you find yourself facing troubles such as your computer is slow as a dinosaur and nothing at all you have tried seems to fix the issues from reoccurring including spyware removal, virus scan as well as hard drive defragmentation, you might next have to try running the zero fill hard drive task. We are going to describe more about this in the following paragraphs. You should note however, that this will remove and make all files stored un-recoverable.
To zero fill your hard drive you will need first make backups of all your crucial files, photos, etc, onto another hard disk, online backup service, DVD, etc. Your files are going to be all wiped out, as this process is going to replace all data; it is called zero fill mainly because it puts a 0 into each byte on the disk, from beginning to end. This helps when you have a bad sector, or corrupt area, and wish to do a fresh install. This task is executed on all partitions, which includes critical ones for instance the master boot record.
At this point Windows does not contain zero fill as a built in utility, so you will need to get one either online or at the local computer retailer. You may ask why you would want to do a zero-fill when you are able do a quick format or format of your respective drive; quite simply answered the format option in your system does not execute a full erase; you can buy several products that can retrieve your data. In the event that you are selling or giving away or even throwing out your pc or hard drive, you want to avoid someone to be able to get entry to it, and maybe personal data stolen.
Be sure to realize that by running this utility this procedure will take quite some time, several hours in fact. This is dependent on the speed and size of the zero fill hard drive. Once it is running however, you will not have to sit and babysit it. The utility will perform on its own.
In conclusion, to zero-fill ones hard drive you are in essence overwriting each byte using a (thus the name zero fill), this procedure will totally wipe out all data making it irretrievable. It is best to do a full backup of your computer files before running this particular utility. That is if you are able to, if files are stored on a bad sector or partition they may not be able to be saved.
