Your first step erased your directory, but it left your data intact ...
I left out the in-between step whereby I initialized the entire drive thereby destroying all the data files. The zero overwrite was just added 'protection'.
How did you do that in-between step?
Nothing tricky. Checking through the possible subroutines for Disk (or Drive) Setup (on the Mac OS 9 Install CD) I found the option to initialize the entire drive; so I choose it and actually ran it twice.
There's no way I've ever heard of to "destroy all the data files".
You can't "destroy" your files; the best you can do is overwrite them with zeros once or more, as you did, but I'm pretty sure that initializing a drive doesn't do that. It's a pretty quick process as I recall...more along the lines of, if not precisely, a simple erase.
