The first thing I do when I get a HD is make sure there are
no third party drivers on it. they are a waste of space and
speed, created to allow broken-out-of-the-box operating systems
to perform better and/or to recognize the disk. At least that's
my perspective on it. I've never had to do a low level format
on one to re-use it. I have had to repartition drives to remove
"utilities" in "hidden" partitions. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Hutchins 
> 
> On Thursday April 1 2004 01:47 am, Kendrick-LUG wrote:
> 
> > western digital puts out a install disk with utilities just for this
> > purpose. 
> 
> Many's the time I've had to explain to a computer owner that 
> because they were 
> using a non-standard driver to mount their hard drive, NONE 
> of their data is 
> recoverable.  We can re-use the drive if we install it 
> properly and do a 
> low-level format.