Q: I am not fdisk and format, I want to know how to get rid of the data on a HD, so it cannot EVER be recovered. Im sure there are some software but i cannot seem to find.
Thanks!
Re:Open it up, pull out the drive platters, scrape a heavy magnet over the surfaces.
You aren't expecting to sell off a non-working drive anyway.Re:There are a few, some are up to DOD (Dept. of Defense) standards for erasing material, but you have to buy those.
Re:The wiping programs seem pretty cool, but what would you do if your hard drive cannot work well to even do a decent wipe? I tried Killdisk and BCwipe, but they stop mid-stream before the wipes are effective. The drive just makes this clinking sound inside and then just hangs.
Re:http://dban.sourceforge.net/
Re:http://wipe.sourceforge.net/secure_del.html
Re:"file shredder" software is essentially the same thing, except that it's applied only to the area of the drive for that particular file, rather than erasing the entire drive. Some of it only "shreds" by overwriting the file once or a few times, other software allows government-standard overwriting. Of course, if the file was ever stored at another part of the drive, it could possibly still be recovered from that location, even though you "shredded" the file at the final deletion, since it only shreds the current location.
I doubt that a simple defrag of the drive will make the data unrecoverable, but possibly shredding the files, then defragging, THEN doing a complete overwrite of the drive could make it harder to find the files. I don't know how well they can sort out "old" data structures from more recent data.
Re:Well I will agree with what everyone has been saying, write 0's then 1's to the hard drive, Standard procedure for the US government with sensitive hard drives is 7 times through the cycle. If it is good enough for them, it is good enough for me heh.
Re:wow … I had no idea that data was recoverable after a format.
What about deleting files then doing a Disk Re-Org?
Or someone using a "file shredder' then a Re-Org?
(on a disk that you still want to use)
Re:guy: that only writes zeroes once. Proper equipment can recover data from a drive that's been overwritten dozens or even hundreds of times if not done right. The government specification defines particular patterns of overwriting and numbers of times to do it, so that it becomes more difficult to recover it. A write of all zeroes makes it unrecoverable through software only, which is fine for most users, but not necessarily business or government.
Re:Try a bulk tape eraser. Basically a big electromagnet. Linky (http://www.idsnow.com/cddegaussers.htm) I have used one of these before (a cheap tan think from Radio Shack from a by-gone era) You plug it in, push the switch on the side and it hums and gets warm. After about 5 minutes, there was nothing on the drive. I was able to fdisk and reformat the drive with no problems afterward. Good Luck!
Re:Western Digital Has a Disk Management Boot Floopy that has a program to write zeros's to any hard drive.
Re:Psh, the US government would just sell the things unwiped.:)
unfortunately while our government may take a paraniod approach to disposal of HDD, the secret service likes to leave them on trains, presumably not realising the schoolboy "treat it like crap and no-one will want to steal it" rule doesnt work on several grand of laptop.
Re:I have always used and like Clean Disk Security (http://www.theabsolute.net/sware/clndisk.html).
Re:Originally posted by: guy
In the hands of experts, they can get something, maybe nothing useful, even off of a wiped drive. The British government grinds their old hard drives into dust, piles it up, lets it sit for a while, then buries it.
Doing a google search for free disk wipe will find you a few links. If you download the drive diagnostics from who ever made your hard drive, most of them have a 1's and 0's wipe utility to reset your drive.
Psh, the US government would just sell the things unwiped.:)
The manufacturer's zero-writer should be adequate for user data. I figure that using that, fdisking and formatting the drive, and running Norton Wipeinfo (included with Norton Utilities) on the drive, set to wipe free space a few times, should do the trick.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
In the hands of experts, they can get something, maybe nothing useful, even off of a wiped drive. The British government grinds their old hard drives into dust, piles it up, lets it sit for a while, then buries it.
Doing a google search for free disk wipe will find you a few links. If you download the drive diagnostics from who ever made your hard drive, most of them have a 1's and 0's wipe utility to reset your drive.
Thats what I was thinking. Just destroy the drive if the data is that valuable.
Re:In the hands of experts, they can get something, maybe nothing useful, even off of a wiped drive. The British government grinds their old hard drives into dust, piles it up, lets it sit for a while, then buries it.
Doing a google search for free disk wipe will find you a few links. If you download the drive diagnostics from who ever made your hard drive, most of them have a 1's and 0's wipe utility to reset your drive.
Re:guy,
The www.killdisk.com (http://www.killdisk.com) site answers your questions I think?… Check it out, I think it has something to do with the federal goverment putting their stamp of approvel on the Pro prog?
Re:www.killdisk.com
They have a free and pro version… I assume that either the data is recoverable or its not. If the free version removes the data, then why would anyone pay for the pro version. Is there various levels of erasing, can someone explain this to me? or give a link to a site that does.
Re:www.killdisk.com (http://www.killdisk.com)
Re:Well, it's hard to make it COMPLETELY unrecoverable. That's called a "security erase" as one name for it, or "government" specification erasing. In that case, the data is overwritten many many times with various patterns (all zeros, then all 1s, all zeros, alternating ones and zeros, then the opposite pattern of ones and zeros, then other patterns). There's a lot of software available for this, however it mostly depends on there being a partition on the drive and you "erase the free space".
For MOST purposes, however, a normal overwrite with all zeros makes the data unrecoverable. After that, it can only be recovered with special equipment. You can download the "diagnostic" tools from most drive manufacturers, and use the option to write all zeros to the drive (sometimes called a low level format). That will wipe out the data further than a format and fdisk does, and leave the drive completely erased, no partition data or master boot record or anything.
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