Ok folks, is there anyway to completely delete all old partitions. Just ran a partition scan with Active Partition Recovery and it's showing over 50 partitions on a 500gb hard drive. I's like to completely remove/delete all partitions from the hdd and have just one partiton. I don't what or how is on those partitions and how they were put on. The drive was new, or so I thought when I bought it from Staples and had only installed windows 7 once and then split the C drive in to two partitions, one for C (the boot OS) and one "E" for backup of files, pictures ect. Any suggestions? Thanks
Thanks for the info pisthai, downloaded the LLF tool but have another question. I did a sysinfo check and the hdd is showing Sectors/Track = 14 and Tracks/Cylinder- 135 . All my other hdd's show 63 and 255. Will the LLF tool change the 14/135 to the normal 63/255? If not how can I change those on the hdd?
Don't worry, LLF will not change the physical format of that HDD. Every HDD has an Hard Coded physical format and that could not be touched at all, even not by LLF! For to change such physical format, you'll need either to change the PCB of that HDD or the firmware. Later isn't an easy task, if could be done at all. Most of those Firmwares are hard-locked and could not be changed, special in newer HDD's!
There is no need to do LLF at all. All the op wanted is get rid of his old partitions, which can be achieved with a simple "clean" command in Diskpart. Use a Win8.1 installation CD/USB to boot the computer, and enter command line, start diskpart, clean, done. Simple as that. After that you can go ahead and re-partition your HDD as you wish.
LLF for no reason is pretty hard on an HDD, writing for security of course is one thing, writing just for sake of writing is not.
The OP like to have ALL old Partitions deleted and the only way for to do that, is to do LLF of an HDD! And as the OP were mentioned, as I was do to in the past, even on 'new' HDD's many times are deleted partitions which will show up if you run some Recovery apps. To get rid of them, an LLf is needed!
no that isn't the only way. you can remove all partition to unallocated space, no need for LLF to do that.
Maybe you hadn't understand what I told? If you user an Partition Recovery Application like Active@ Partition Recovery (and others), you could see all partitions ever created on an Harddisk, if not an Low Level Format were done upfront! Even you move all those old partitions top an unallocated space, they will still be shown! The only way to get rid of those old partitions, is an Low Level Format of that Harddisk! As it seems that you didn't believe me, which you didn't need, use one of your old Harddisk's and test it at your own machine. Or, if that isn't possible, ask any IT-Forensic, who's is working in Data Recovery Services and Business about it! And just to note: I didn't spook about partitions which having recoverable data, and neither the OP told that, the meaning is just all those old partitions shown! To get the Harddisk looks vergin, Low Level Format is the only way! ""Mache ein Probe auf das Exampel""
using LLF is like using an atomic bomb to kill a mosquito... of course it will do the job...like the atomic bomb will kill the mosquito.