- Saki [faqs]

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Filling up a hard drive with a temp file doesn't freeze it or destroy it for good. If you have certain OS configurations, it may prevent the PC from booting up, but if it really was just a temp file that got too big, you should be able to re-format the drive and re-install the operating system (assuming it was on the boot drive).

A bigger reason not use such programs is they really don't reliably erase files--definitely not to the extent that professionals couldn't recover them.

- Saki [faqs]

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Edited by - I spew on my face on 8/17/2004 3:45:36 PM

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If so, you might want to try downloading a copy of Knoppix. That's a Linux version that's bootable of the CD.
When you've booted that you could use a Linux version of the partitioning tool fdisk. With that you should be able to clear the partition table properly.

Another solution might be PartitionMagic.

Then you should be able to 'infect' it with Windows again.

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It's very unlikely any software physically ruined your hd, no commercial program I've heard of can control bearings and spindles or has the option to channel magnetic fields, which it would need to do.

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If the partition table is ruined, it can easily be rebuilt even if Windows can't do it.

Try PartitionMagic or something similar.

Failing that try a live CD version of Linux.
I've repaired both hard drives and flash discs that had been fucked up so badly that Windows wouldn't touch them.
After a little cleanup with Linux' fdisk they worked fine again. Even under Windows.

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kperv's right(hd problems? try linux, lol--i love linux users), i've only heard of one or two viruses, both from a decade or so ago being able to really, permanently trash hardware. that stuff generally is aimed at infecting large numbers of computers and trashing the host is a bad way to do it.

my advice would be use your warranty since the real solution to 70gb of trashed ntfs sectors is going to be wading through them in a pretty draconian way. storage is cheap anyhow, certainly in the scheme of your setup.

kperv-what are you running btw? i tried the "friendlier" options in the winter and hated them. somehow i ended up with debian, which was worth the learning curve in retrospect, but it may be time to check out what's out there now--any suggestions? fedora is out forever after it decided to make a no-boot out of a dual-boot, but anything else is fair game.

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You guys may also like FreeSBIE.
GNOME desktop, OpenOffice, Ximian Evolution, Firefox browser, very very slick and based on my favorite OS.

Nothing to add to the drive debate - new or not, it sounds fucked to me, too. It has moving parts, right? It happens.

Run whatever diagnostic the manufacturer provides, and when it fails - call them for an RMA number and send it back. Get a new one in 1-2 weeks.

Rather than Eraser or Shred: hide folders from the OS, scramble the folder names, encrypt them, and password-protect.

Look at DriveCrypt and Encrypted Magic Folders. It won't stand up to extreme scrutiny, but it'll stand up to 99.9% of casual attempts to view it.

Unless you're planning to overthrow a government or you're stealing credit card numbers, that should be more than enough peace of mind.

Otherwise, get a Degausser. Bear in mind it renders hard drives useless, but it works.

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Worship at the altar of Tux the penguin Buddha.

For anyone new to Linux I think SuSE is worth a look.
It's easy to install and maintain, and comes with a truckload of applications. I used SuSE for a while until I yearned for the total dictatorial power I felt I wielded with Slack.

RedHat was good in the olden days. When they got bitten by the lets-make-it-easy bug, they lost me. SuSE does that schtick much better IMHO. Never tried Fedora.

I tried Mandrake but the fonts were somehow fucked up. As it was supposed to be the easiest distro available I wasn't about to forgive any configuration troubles. Out it went, faster than you can say fdisk.

I had a look at Debian but never installed it. The guys at Debian apparently like to make lots of little changes to the applications during packaging. Many distro's do this, but it seems Debian are the worst offenders. Patrick (he of Slack) rarely messes about with the applications.

If you have too much spare time, you might want to try Gentoo. It's claim to fame is that all packages are compiled on and optimised for your own machine. This will yield a faster system, but I just couldn't be arsed to do it. You don't actually get gain any more control over your configuration that way, just a faster system.

As for desktop environments and/or window managers, I'm using KDE.

There are some great mediumweight window managers.
Fvwm is so configurable it's geek heaven. And the source code is quite readable too.
AfterStep is great too.
I used WindowMaker for a while, but around version 0.60 they made some changes that pissed me off. Haven't looked back.

Other desktop environments are XFCE and GNOME.
XFCE is quick and small. Very nice.
GNOME on the other hand I've hated with a passion since version 1.0. Something about it just rubs me up the wrong way. I tried the recent 2.6 just out of curiosity. Worse than ever. A nightmare to install from source, as big and bloated as KDE but boring beyond belief, and where the hell did the configuration options go? And the default options for their filemanager? Aaaargh. What were they thinking?

Something about Fvwm, AfterStep and to some extent XFCE appeals to me. I think they're great. But still KDE's polish beckons me back.
As a programmer, I also like Qt (KDE's widget framework). It's well designed.
KDE's DCOP and KParts are also great. They're pretty much what Microsoft's COM interfaces promised to be, only they are actually usable from C++ programs without causing convulsions.

Whew. Quite a rant. That's what you get for asking me about Linux. Or GNU/Linux as St. Gnucius himself Richard Stallman prefers it.

Edited because Linux apparently also causes bad spelling.

Edited by - Kperv on 8/18/2004 12:31:01 PM

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Linux for fancy graphical desktops.
OpenBSD for servers running the absolute minimum required daemons.

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For distro comparisons try DistroWatch. Very nice site.

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