Kia Ora,

This question falls into that grey area between hardware and software,
so I hope that our ListOwners will understand me asking here first.

I need to know if there is any way of completely wiping a hard-drive,
ie: returning it to ones and zeros, or binarys, or whatever.

The reason is because of a failed install of Linux Mandrake due to
hardware detection problems, - because it didn't install properly I
can't figure out how to un-install it, even with the program
documentation.

Using 'fdisk' to delete all DOS and non DOS partitions got me part of
the way, but of course, now I can't use the recommended DOS command
'fdisk /mbr. (Master Boot Record) which is where I suspect the problem
lies.
Any attempt to load or boot anything else gives me a Mandrake Start
Screen, - and then a 'Kernel panic warning' - something I've become
familiar with recently, - Wish I hadn't, but will persevere.

The background to all this is that, thanks in large part to PCBUILD, I
managed to build one and get it to work well using  W98SE.  Not bad for
a truck-driver, - but Windows XP has got right up my nose and I refuse
to buy it - therefore my interest in Linux.

Then I decided to do a trial install on my old P133 Toshiba laptop, (
figuring that it can always be wiped clean) which is where the actual
problem lies.
How do I really wipe the laptop HDD?

I look forward to your advice, thoughts or experiences.

Kevin,
New Zealand.

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