Best way to nuke an external drive?

[Crow550]

Got a external drive hooked up with firewire.

Will Dban work? I want to just nuke the external drive not my internal drive.

What would be the best way to do this?

Yeah I know Windows does formatting, but it's low level. I wanna scrub it clean.

 

[sharad]

Something like SysInternals SDelete?

http://technet.microsoft.com/e...nternals/bb897443.aspx

 

[glugglug]

If you do a full format, not a quick format, it will be wiped clean (assuming no other partitions).

 

[taltamir]

actually, in a modern drive it will NOT wipe it clean to do a full format. I made the same mistake and was proven wrong.
You need to invoke a function called secure delete, which many programs will do for you.

Or you can just expose it to a degausser.

 

[Nothinman]

If you do a full format, not a quick format, it will be wiped clean (assuming no other partitions).

No, a Windows full format does a bad block read test, nothing more. You need a tool that will overwrite every sector several times if you want to foil most data recovery software.

 

[Billb2]

Sure fire method:
Open the drive
Remove the platter
Break the platter into at least three pieces
One in the garbage
Bury another
Throw a third in a lake.

 

[Binky]

http://www.google.com/search?q=free+drive+erase

 

[drizek]

Try to see if DBan will do it. Unplug your internal drives first though.

There is a free windows program called Eraser that will wipe it too, but I think you need to do a format in windows first, and then run eraser.

 

[glugglug]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

If you do a full format, not a quick format, it will be wiped clean (assuming no other partitions).

No, a Windows full format does a bad block read test, nothing more. You need a tool that will overwrite every sector several times if you want to foil most data recovery software.

Overwriting every sector once is sufficient enough that even the NSA won't be able to recover a useful amount of data from your drive. SSDs are another story.

I was under the impression that Windows full format filled unused blocks with zeros. If it is only doing a read, this is news to me.

 

[jimhsu]

Originally posted by: glugglug
If you do a full format, not a quick format, it will be wiped clean (assuming no other partitions).

This is new to me. Do you have a source?
Most corporate IT policy assumes that a drive with nonsensitive data is cleared by a full format. Seems they are wrong.

 

[RebateMonger]

The only time that a Windows (or DOS) "Format" overwrites data is when formatting a floppy disk. Otherwise, most information is recoverable.

I haven't tested it, but it appears that DBAN 2.0 has Firewire and USB drivers ( Link ), but I can't find the original release notes that say this.

 

[Keysplayr]

What about tools from the hard drive manufacturer? They usually have a utility to write zeros to the entire drive, effectively returning it to factory shipping default. Or does that not happen when zeros are written to the entire drive?

Seagate has "SeaTools". WD, IBM/Hitachi, Fujitsu, all have similar tools.

 

[jpk]

You will need to get a program specificly designed to erase a HD. I have Drive Erase Pro. I don't use the privacy disc but have used the erase disc many times. The program provides several levels of erasure from a simple low security one pass ones and zeros to a complicated algorithim multi pass rewrite. One thing about the highest erase methods, they will take several passes on a HD to complete the erasure and that can take days to finish a complete erasure and the basic one pass ones and zeros can take several hours depending on the size of the HD.