Symantec Disk Editor

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Warning ! For professional use only !

Warning : Using Disk Editor you can permanently destroy all the data stored on your hard disk.

Work in Read-Only Mode until you'll be familiar with this tool.

Remember ! If you make any changes to boot sector you can destroy all the data at once.

Disk Editor is very useful application that can help you to inspect and clean up any part of hard disk including the boot sector.

This is the best way to eliminate boot sector viruses like BloodHound or CIH, because trivial format would not remove them.

And if you want to properly clean remains of previously installed or different OS, corrupt partition structure or confidential data - Disk Editor is one of the best solutions.

And of course if you have couple of days to spend you can erase entire hard disk so it would be as good as it just left the factory.

Can be used with any data storage media such as floppy/zip/tape/flash drives.

How to use :

Warning ! Making the following steps would completely destroy all the data of your HDD possibly with no recovery option !

Step 1 : Set Disk Editor to Write mode from Options menu (can be done using diskedit /w switch)

Step 2 : Select Object -> Drive -> Physical disks -> Hard disk

Step 3 : Edit -> Mark then using <PgDn> or down arrow key completely mark the Side 1 

Step 4 : Erase the boot sector Edit -> Fill with the first (0 00 '.') char

Step 5 : Reboot and reconfigure your HDD with FDISK, Partition magic or similar tool.