Is this decent way to zero a drive?

[Red Squirrel]

I put together a simple PC for my sister to replace her POS compaq (man, those things are such crap) and I could not actually get it to reconize my keyboard and mouse so could not actually log to windows, so what I did was removed the HDD (30 ish screws later, with metal components all over the place) and put it in my usb hdd enclosure so I can get her data to transfer to her PC.

Now I just want to zero out the drive, but since I can't actually boot the pc with my keyboard and mouse, I can only do it through usb, so I wrote a simple app that writes a huge file with 0x0 to fill the drive, then I'll delete the file and do another with 0xff, and might do an alternating 0xff and 0x0 or something after.

Will this suffice for basic drive wiping? Or am I totally wasting my time? No top secret data on here, but just want to make sure at least a basic recovery program can't recover any of the data. I'll put Ubuntu on it or something after and give the pc back to her so she can try to sell it, for like maybe 50 bucks. Makes a great boat anchor.

 

[Billb2]

I'm a little confused.....you can write files to the drive, but you can't format it?
And, are you writing to only the empty places on the drive, or are you overwriting existing files?

 

[TheSaxon]

there are many tools out there that do this. I'm not sure what is best, but try dban. Also, google open source drive wipers and you should find some that work. You can probably even find ones that run as a boot disk and dont require input.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: Billb2
I'm a little confused.....you can write files to the drive, but you can't format it?
And, are you writing to only the empty places on the drive, or are you overwriting existing files?

Formatting wont destroy data completly. And this is through a USB case so its not like I can boot on a low level format floppy, for this case. The POS compaq it was in wont even reconize a standard keyboard and mouse so I can't boot it off that.

The proceedure I'm using is writing a huge file until there is no space left on the drive, so it covers the entire drive up. Just not sure wether or not this is in fact affective. Like can data still be easily recovered by analysing different magnetism levels, or something? Technically the entire drive has in fact been overwritten though, since the file was as big as the drive can hold.

 

[TheSaxon]

Again, there are many tools out there that do this, just google it. Yes technically, data can be recovered after you write all 0's and then 1's multiple times, but the more times you do that, the more prohibitively expensive it becomes to try and recover it. If the CIA is after you, they'll find a way, otherwise, 0-ing and then 1-ing the drive a few times will do the trick.

 

[Billb2]

The ultimate HDD data security..............
Open the drive, remove the platter, break it into small pieces, throw at least one piece in the garbage and at least one into a lake.... preferably a deep one..... at night.

 

[blueeyesm]

You could check the manufacturers web site for their data tools. Most have free apps you can download and wipe the drive with at a very low level.

I.E. - http://www.seagate.com/www/en-...rt/downloads/seatools/

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: Billb2
The ultimate HDD data security..............
Open the drive, remove the platter, break it into small pieces, throw at least one piece in the garbage and at least one into a lake.... preferably a deep one..... at night.

A shot gun works too, thats when we do for the drives where I work.


But in this particular case I'm looking to make the drive still usable, its probably worth more then the whole computer itself, because its a compaq.

 

[taltamir]

I am confused as to why in the blazes you are even BOTHERING with all that crap?

 

[SunSamurai]

No, you simply take the drive to a smith and watch him melt it down, ask then that the smith forge you an almighty blade with this melted hard drive. Take this blade and stab yourself with it for going though so much trouble with this.

 

[Modelworks]

Info I got from a friend that does drive recovery for fires, etc professionally.


Write zeros to the drive and thats good enough.
You cannot recover data off a platter once that is done without removing the platter or using advanced firmware. Both really expensive.

Once you write a zero to each sector on the platter the drive will only read that zero each time you request info from that sector. With advanced software/firmware it is possible to address each sector repeatedly , upwards of hundreds of times to build a table of percentages of whether the sector contains a zero or one. Then that data is fed into another part of the program to try to reconstruct the data.

Often this requires changing gain values and thresholds as to what is considered a zero or one. Again, really expensive.


OR:
Do what the military does .
Shred the drive into little bits.
Melt the peices down into ingots.
Store the ingots in secure locations.

Yes they actually do that last step.
I was like, ok, exactly how do you recover data from a melted ingot.
The reply "There are ways!"

 

[Nothinman]

I am confused as to why in the blazes you are even BOTHERING with all that crap?

It's how he rolls...