Effectively erasing a HD, how?

[javierdl]

I once read that just formtting the HD isn't enough to completely and securely get rid of "everything". It was some time ago, so I can't remember any of those programs I saw mentioned (in the article). Could anyone recommend a program or two for this?

Thanks in advance,

JDL

 

[theMan]

there have been a lot of threads on this. the only real way to get all the data off a hard drive is to destroy the platters. which you could do by dropping or smashing it. however, you wont need to do that unless you're being chased by the CIA or something. its really expensive to recover data off a low-level format, or even a zero-fill. maxtor has a utility for their drives that can perform a zero-fill. it just writes zeros over the entire drive. there are also programs that write completely random code over the entire drive, and you can run them for days, and there is not much of a chance of anyone getting anything off it. i cant think of any programs right now, but a google search will help.

 

[Diasper]

Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) - it's the best at its job and it's free.

You can get it off sourceforge.

For the *very* thorough I'd recommend one Short Department of Defense Wipe (is 3 rounds) followed by 10 rounds of their highly random algorithms.

If you're really worried you can do more rounds of the latter followed by another different sort of wipe eg the Royal Canadian one. A friend did that - they ahd the time and inclination. They must have done close to 30 rounds of several different types - crazy!

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Diasper
Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN) - it's the best at its job and it's free.

You can get it off sourceforge.

For the *very* thorough I'd recommend one Short Department of Defense Wipe (is 3 rounds) followed by 10 rounds of their highly random algorithms.

If you're really worried you can do more rounds of the latter followed by another different sort of wipe eg the Royal Canadian one. A friend did that - they ahd the time and inclination. They must have done close to 30 rounds of several different types - crazy!

^That's what you need. Here's a link. :thumbsup:

 

[JDCentral]

LOL.. Boot n' Nuke!

I really don't NEED to use this program... but I might just DL and run it to erase a few drives, just b/c of it's catchy name!

 

[aplefka]

DBAN was actually recommended in this month's issue of Maximum PC if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Continuity27]

Do these programs fill zeros (low level format) and then alternate with random 1s and then do that over and over for several passes? And then finish with another low level format?

 

[aplefka]

Originally posted by: Continuity27
Do these programs fill zeros (low level format) and then alternate with random 1s and then do that over and over for several passes? And then finish with another low level format?

To be perfectly honest, I don't know. I would look it up on the DBAN site.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: aplefka

Originally posted by: Continuity27
Do these programs fill zeros (low level format) and then alternate with random 1s and then do that over and over for several passes? And then finish with another low level format?

To be perfectly honest, I don't know. I would look it up on the DBAN site.

It's all on there if you feel like clicking on the link...

What I found very funny back when I was googling and found DBAN for the first time, was that there is another site (sorry, couldn't find it again) that had some disk erasing tool, but they only sold it to the government and certain corporations on very strict terms, while claiming that to do otherwise would be "un-American," etc. Very ironic it was indeed, because of all the other freely available tools - not the least of which being DBAN - that are "out there" for anyone's use. :roll:

 

[javierdl]

Wow! Thank you so much for your promp replies guys
This does help.

JDL

 

[shoRunner]

Originally posted by: theman
there have been a lot of threads on this. the only real way to get all the data off a hard drive is to destroy the platters. which you could do by dropping or smashing it. however, you wont need to do that unless you're being chased by the CIA or something. its really expensive to recover data off a low-level format, or even a zero-fill. maxtor has a utility for their drives that can perform a zero-fill. it just writes zeros over the entire drive. there are also programs that write completely random code over the entire drive, and you can run them for days, and there is not much of a chance of anyone getting anything off it. i cant think of any programs right now, but a google search will help.

i don't believe that any modern drive can truely be low level formatted(a total zero fill) as per how they are designed. this is why data recover programs work after a format

 

[Continuity27]

Originally posted by: shoRunner

Originally posted by: theman
there have been a lot of threads on this. the only real way to get all the data off a hard drive is to destroy the platters. which you could do by dropping or smashing it. however, you wont need to do that unless you're being chased by the CIA or something. its really expensive to recover data off a low-level format, or even a zero-fill. maxtor has a utility for their drives that can perform a zero-fill. it just writes zeros over the entire drive. there are also programs that write completely random code over the entire drive, and you can run them for days, and there is not much of a chance of anyone getting anything off it. i cant think of any programs right now, but a google search will help.

i don't believe that any modern drive can truely be low level formatted(a total zero fill) as per how they are designed. this is why data recover programs work after a format

Keep in mind that if you constantly use up all of your disk space, and format, use up the disk space, format (etc filling in 1s and 0s) it would be impossible to reclaim data from several formats ago. If it were possible to do so, hard drives would essentially be tripled or infinite in their storage capacity. You can't keep reading off of ghosts forever.

 

[Varun]

We are confusing a low level format with a zero fill. They are not the same



(n.) Short for low-level format, a formatting method that creates the tracks and sectors on a hard disk. Low-level formatting creates the physical format that dictates where data is stored on the disk. Also see high-level format.
Modern hard drives are low-level formatted at the factory for the life of the drive. A PC can not perform an LLF on a modern IDE/ATA or SCSI hard disk, and doing so would destroy the hard disk. Older MFM drives could be low-level formatted to extend the life of the disk, but modern hard drives no longer use MFM technology.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/L/LLF.html

If you truly want your data gone, then yes destroying the hard drive is the only 100% effective way. However the zero fill programs run in sequence with the random byte programs will make it much more difficult to get access to old data than it is worth.

Unless you are dealing with data such as government or secret corporate data there is no reason to worry about someone reading your info - if you are selling the hard drive just do a zero fill and be done with it.

If you are dealing with sensitive information, then there is no reason to do a zero fill because the drive should just be destroyed. Drives are far to cheap to even worry about erasing.

 

[SonicIce]

this is all you need

 

[shoRunner]

Originally posted by: Continuity27

Originally posted by: shoRunner

Originally posted by: theman
there have been a lot of threads on this. the only real way to get all the data off a hard drive is to destroy the platters. which you could do by dropping or smashing it. however, you wont need to do that unless you're being chased by the CIA or something. its really expensive to recover data off a low-level format, or even a zero-fill. maxtor has a utility for their drives that can perform a zero-fill. it just writes zeros over the entire drive. there are also programs that write completely random code over the entire drive, and you can run them for days, and there is not much of a chance of anyone getting anything off it. i cant think of any programs right now, but a google search will help.

i don't believe that any modern drive can truely be low level formatted(a total zero fill) as per how they are designed. this is why data recover programs work after a format

Keep in mind that if you constantly use up all of your disk space, and format, use up the disk space, format (etc filling in 1s and 0s) it would be impossible to reclaim data from several formats ago. If it were possible to do so, hard drives would essentially be tripled or infinite in their storage capacity. You can't keep reading off of ghosts forever.

i simply said after a format.

Originally posted by: Varun
We are confusing a low level format with a zero fill. They are not the same

(n.) Short for low-level format, a formatting method that creates the tracks and sectors on a hard disk. Low-level formatting creates the physical format that dictates where data is stored on the disk. Also see high-level format.
Modern hard drives are low-level formatted at the factory for the life of the drive. A PC can not perform an LLF on a modern IDE/ATA or SCSI hard disk, and doing so would destroy the hard disk. Older MFM drives could be low-level formatted to extend the life of the disk, but modern hard drives no longer use MFM technology.

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/L/LLF.html

thank you for the refresher. i was mistaken.

 

[Diasper]

Well, I'm not categorically sure how it works, but what other people say is correct - after using DBAN it would take alot of effort (and money) to get at your data.

But as far as I'm aware the random fills with 1s and 0s (the last in the list of options) where each round is different would make it very very difficult to get data back. Combined with other wipes ...it's your guess.


Is it still possible after that? Perhaps - but not many people in the world would have the technology and resources to do that - and well, if they want your data you've got bigger problems



edit: btw the reason why using DBAN is better than other programs is that it works from DOS and so will right over all the secitions of the hardrive including the partition tables - if i've understood correctly anyway. In windows its nigh impossible to format over excess data because the hardrive is constantly being written to and so programs can't effectively write over everything no matter what techniques they use (ie might fubar the OS if they did). Also the partition tables are still intact and unaffacted (obviously)

 

[Pr0d1gy]

I just use Data Lifeguard tools and write zeros to the drive & do a quick NTFS format whenever I clean my drive.

 

[mechBgon]

If you have Win2000 or XP edit: XP Professional, I should say (or server variants thereof), another possibly-useful utility is cipher. It's a Windows command, just go Start > Run and type the command cipher /w:C:\. It will overwrite all the unused capacity of the drive C: (or whatever drive you want) with three layers of EFS-encrypted junk data and then delete it all. It won't harm your OS or apps, you can keep right on doing what you're doing while cipher is doing its thing.

Obviously an answer to a different question, but I thought I'd mention it in case anyone needs such a thing.

 

[shoRunner]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
If you have Win2000 or XP (or server variants thereof), another possibly-useful utility is cipher. It's a Windows command, just go Start > Run and type the command cipher /w:C:\. It will overwrite all the unused capacity of the drive C: (or whatever drive you want) with three layers of EFS-encrypted junk data and then delete it all. It won't harm your OS or apps, you can keep right on doing what you're doing while cipher is doing its thing.

Obviously an answer to a different question, but I thought I'd mention it in case anyone needs such a thing.

doesn't work, can't find file or path for cipher.

 

[mechBgon]

Ohhh... I bet you're on WinXP Home Edition, which doesn't have EFS in its arsenel. I better start adding a disclaimer to that

 

[shoRunner]

yep, thought the machine i was on had pro, but didn't. worked on pro though.

 

[pradeep1]

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) Tools has a program to wipe your harddrive to DoD specifications. After something like 8 passes, your harddrive is essentially clean as far as the govt. is concerned. Check into that. Of course an 8 pass wipe on a 100 GB will take about 2-3 days to execute.

 

[wetcat007]

Shotgun point blank

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
If you have Win2000 or XP edit: XP Professional, I should say (or server variants thereof), another possibly-useful utility is cipher. It's a Windows command, just go Start > Run and type the command cipher /w:C:\. It will overwrite all the unused capacity of the drive C: (or whatever drive you want) with three layers of EFS-encrypted junk data and then delete it all. It won't harm your OS or apps, you can keep right on doing what you're doing while cipher is doing its thing.

Obviously an answer to a different question, but I thought I'd mention it in case anyone needs such a thing.

So i can do this right now just for sh!ts and giggles ...

 

[Mrpilot007]

After reading all of these suggestions all I can think of is HOLY CRAP!

Either you don't want your wife to find out you used to have your hard drives full of porn or you are afraid that the FBI is going to break down your door and try to get on on software piracy. I seriously doubt that anyone would get anything of use from my many gigabytes of information. Just useless games