Erasing a harddrive

[aniruddha23]

So here the question I have for all.

Is there any Utility or method and I mean software based only to make a drive data unrecoverable by any means.

No blasting, buring etc allowed.

I would be surprised if the answer is no.

 

[aniruddha23]

Originally posted by: pkme2
Killdisk and its free!
KillDisk conforms to US Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DoD 5220.22-M.

Sounds more like marketing lingo to me. Also if u read the description carefully Its full of grammatical errors. wouldnt trust them too much.

 

[fierydemise]

Originally posted by: shoRunner
thermite

Damn I was going to suggest that,
another fun idea:
1. A lot of electyolsis
2. Fill a big soda bottle
3. Strap HDs to bottle
4. Light bottle (from a distance)
5. Break sound barrier

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: aniruddha23
So here the question I have for all.

Is there any Utility or method and I mean software based only to make a drive data unrecoverable by any means.

No blasting, buring etc allowed.

I would be surprised if the answer is no.

Prepare to be surprised.

As far as I know, the ONLY way to absolutely 100% completely (save access to a time machine) ensure that the data will never be recovered, is to physically destroy the drive. The ever-popular thermite suggestion would do the trick, as would running the thing against an industrial belt-grinder, turning it all to dust. There's also an often-reposted industrial shredder, available in various sizes, capable of shredding a car. A modification of that should do the trick too.

For practical means, you should be fine with DBAN.
I have wondered though - with NTFS, you can encrypt sensitive data before it's written to the drive. Do that, and then the folks trying to recover data would not be sure if they're getting good data or junk, because either way, it'd be unreadable.

 

[aniruddha23]

Any ideas at a high level exactly how they go about recovering data? I mean each and every bit on that HD has been randomized. How is an audit trail maintained of what changes the data went through?

e.g We ran a HDD through DBAN and a tonne of other multi pass formats etc etc. How do the recovery guys even get to what happenned in the last cycle.

 

[InlineFour]

i highly doubt the person you are giving away your hard drive to will want to spend the time and money to recover your data. if you're really that paranoid, just keep the hard drive for yourself.

 

[pkme2]

Originally posted by: aniruddha23

Originally posted by: pkme2
Killdisk and its free!
KillDisk conforms to US Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DoD 5220.22-M.

Sounds more like marketing lingo to me. Also if u read the description carefully Its full of grammatical errors. wouldnt trust them too much.

Guess you know more than what standards the DOD adhere to. Why don't you come up with something smarter than your mouth.

 

[aniruddha23]

Originally posted by: pkme2
Guess you know more than what standards the DOD adhere to. Why don't you come up with something smarter than your mouth.

I just made an observation. Looks like u always fall for gimmicks.

 

[pkme2]

Originally posted by: aniruddha23

Originally posted by: pkme2
Guess you know more than what standards the DOD adhere to. Why don't you come up with something smarter than your mouth.

I just made an observation. Looks like u always fall for gimmicks.

Your reading comprehension misses the mark, and you're about to lose the technical argument. The thread asked for a harddrive wipe. Is that too difficult for you to understand?
Please read before doing it, so you can show everybody how you will respond.
Be careful, Big Brother maybe watching.

 

[bluestrobe]

Low Level Format 3 times on each drive. If someone is going to want the information after that then it's going to cost them a ton of money to get information which is probably too old to be useful. I don't see where the paranoia and arguing is coming from. If you want to dump the drives I could use them in my DC farm. They'll be safe there.

 

[Slickone]

Originally posted by: aniruddha23

Originally posted by: pkme2
Guess you know more than what standards the DOD adhere to. Why don't you come up with something smarter than your mouth.

I just made an observation. Looks like u always fall for gimmicks.

Wow, good luck getting help here in the future.

And unless you're into some really bad stuff, you're way too paranoid.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: aniruddha23
Any ideas at a high level exactly how they go about recovering data? I mean each and every bit on that HD has been randomized. How is an audit trail maintained of what changes the data went through?

e.g We ran a HDD through DBAN and a tonne of other multi pass formats etc etc. How do the recovery guys even get to what happenned in the last cycle.

Normally what is done in that case is that the drive is disassembled in a clean room, and the platters are scanned with very high resolution magnetic readers (like the heads in your hard drive, but much more sensitive).

If you "only" zero-filled the drive, they can look for variations in the magnetic field strength. If a data pattern is written to the drive and left for a long time, the bits that were "on" before the zero-fill will have a slightly higher magnetic field strength than the ones that were "off" before the zero-fill, and usually you can reconstruct most of the drive. Wiping the drive multiple times (especially writing random patterns over it) make this type of recovery a lot harder.

Also, because drive calibration can change over time, and also due to thermal cycling (the disk is slightly larger when it is warm, and slightly smaller when it is cold), the edges of tracks are often not completely erased when the drive is formatted or zero-filled. Looking for these unerased areas is another way to try to get at data that has been 'wiped' by various software means.

Basically:

Writing over the whole drive with zeroes makes software-only recovery impossible. Unless someone has reason to believe there is VERY valuable data on the drive, they're just not going to bother.

Writing over the drive multiple times with random data makes any recovery a lot harder.

To be REALLY REALLY sure that nobody can *ever* read that data, you have to make the drive unusable (either by degaussing it to the point where the real low-level formatting is gone, or physically destroying the platters). If you don't have industrial-strength tools to do this, you can take the drive apart and use a sander on the platter surfaces (and/or smash them into little pieces if they're glass substrate platters). Applying VERY strong magnets to the disk surface could work, but this is somewhat unreliable if you're doing it by hand.

 

[aniruddha23]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Not that I really have any data that so sensitive but am sure this is a very good article for those who were curious how they ever get their hands on that data. Thanks a lot.

 

[aniruddha23]

Originally posted by: Slickone

Originally posted by: aniruddha23

Originally posted by: pkme2
Guess you know more than what standards the DOD adhere to. Why don't you come up with something smarter than your mouth.

I just made an observation. Looks like u always fall for gimmicks.

Wow, good luck getting help here in the future.

And unless you're into some really bad stuff, you're way too paranoid.

As I said it was just an observation about the description on the site. Just think he took it personally. no need to start flamin each other.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Googer

1. Download the Ultimate Boot CD, run one the Hard Drive erase tools. Then Run a differant one.
   http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/
   
2. Get the biggest drill bit you can find and then drill holes in the Platter (not the spindle). Do not drill the center of the disk where the motor is, but drill the outer edges. It is best to leave the cover on while doing this.
   
3. Then get a power saw that can cut through concrete or metal and cut the drive into four pieces.
   
4. Drive 150 miles away from civilization in to the desert, take a shovel with you and bury each of the four pieces six feet underground in four differant locations.
   
5. Your Data should be safe.
   
   

Periodicly check you shoulder or rearview mirror to make sure no one is following or watching you.

Um, wouldn't it be easier to burn/blow up the drive? Sure, you can drill and cut it before you do that, but burying it without using some pyrotechnics is just silly (and far less fun). Even better would be sealing the burnt remains in some concrete and then dumping that into the ocean.

Firing it into space just seems silly and too expensive but is an option I guess, especially if you can get it into one of the gas giants or the sun.

 

[Slickone]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
Normally what is done in that case is that the drive is disassembled in a clean room, and the platters are scanned with very high resolution magnetic readers (like the heads in your hard drive, but much more sensitive).

Ah, that's not how they do it. Just watch CSI. They hook it to a magic computer and the data slowy becomes more and more readable until most, but not all, of the letters are readable, shown as giant text on the neat looking gigantic holographic screen.

 

[bluestrobe]

Originally posted by: Slickone
Ah, that's not how they do it. Just watch CSI. They hook it to a magic computer and the data slowy becomes more and more readable until most, but not all, of the letters are readable, shown as giant text on the neat looking gigantic holographic screen.

All in under 10 minutes too.

 

[aniruddha23]

Originally posted by: bluestrobe

Originally posted by: Slickone
Ah, that's not how they do it. Just watch CSI. They hook it to a magic computer and the data slowy becomes more and more readable until most, but not all, of the letters are readable, shown as giant text on the neat looking gigantic holographic screen.

All in under 10 minutes too.

How about those Guys at 24 who can get into any Networked system or camera whenever they want. Do they use Remote Desktop for that

 

[imported_rod]

Originally posted by: aniruddha23

Originally posted by: bluestrobe

Originally posted by: Slickone
Ah, that's not how they do it. Just watch CSI. They hook it to a magic computer and the data slowy becomes more and more readable until most, but not all, of the letters are readable, shown as giant text on the neat looking gigantic holographic screen.

All in under 10 minutes too.

How about those Guys at 24 who can get into any Networked system or camera whenever they want. Do they use Remote Desktop for that

LOL.

OP: Format, then write over the drive with zeroes. If you're really paranoid, write random data onto the drive and format and zero again, but the first format/zero should be more than enough.

RoD

 

[CapaJC]

DBAN is easy to use. The 3-pass wipe is DoD's "lite" standard, their full standard goes 7 passes. That's what I just used on about 6 old drives I'm selling or tossing.

DBAN took about 2 hours on an old 2.78GB drive (slow drive!), and just a few hours for an 80GB newer drive. The 160GB took all night.

Of course, when I sell the drives on eBay, I'll likely say that they were used to backup all kinds of critical financial data for my company, and I'm _positive_ they're clean 'cuz I deleted the partitions That oughta' drive up the bids.

--James in S.D.

 

[letdown427]

Originally posted by: CapaJC
DBAN is easy to use. The 3-pass wipe is DoD's "lite" standard, their full standard goes 7 passes. That's what I just used on about 6 old drives I'm selling or tossing.

DBAN took about 2 hours on an old 2.78GB drive (slow drive!), and just a few hours for an 80GB newer drive. The 160GB took all night.

Of course, when I sell the drives on eBay, I'll likely say that they were used to backup all kinds of critical financial data for my company, and I'm _positive_ they're clean 'cuz I deleted the partitions That oughta' drive up the bids.

--James in S.D.

That's good. Very good.

"I'm an accountant for a large firm, I work from home, and I also used them to back up my bank details. However, I'm selling them because I fear my PC has become 'compromised' and so, having deleted all of the files, and emptied the recycle bin, I'm selling the drives, so that whoever got into my computer can't get anything."

That should make you thousands. hehe

 

[Slickone]

I noticed Eraser uses the Darik's Boot and Nuke method to erase HDD's. Both offer Guttmann and US DoD 5220-22.M methods too.
DBAN features
Eraser features

 

[eplebnista]

Another vote for DBAN!

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Slickone
I noticed Eraser uses the Darik's Boot and Nuke method to erase HDD's. Both offer Guttmann and US DoD 5220-22.M methods too.
DBAN features
Eraser features

yea just set eraser to go over it 7times or whatever. its good as gone

 

[Jhhnn]

The standard wipe with DBAN is good for anybody not in trouble with the NSA or FBI- I'm not sure that even they could get much from a guttman-wiped drive... Hell, just writing the drive to zeroes puts any latent data beyond software recovery methods...

For the truly paranoid, physical destruction is the only sure method. If you're cheap and paranoid, then running a guttman wipe before loading software and then again when you're done with the drive would provide a very high level of security... I remember reading somewhere that the first write to the drive leaves the strongest traces- if that's gobbledegook, it makes cleanroom recovery a lot more difficult...