Selling a hard drive. What's the best way to completely clean it?

[HeroOfPellinor]

Looking for something free if possible. I hear just reformatting or FDISKing doesn't do enough.

 

[KnightPalatine]

You can get a 15-day free trial of CyberScrub. This is what the (expletive deleted) Feds use.

If you find it useful enough to keep around, the purchase price is $49.95.

 

[Fern]

Go to the HD maker website and look for their (free) program which will will do "a low level format". Basically it writes zero's to the drive. Do the full LL format, not the quick. If the HD is a Maxtor, go to their site and look for Powermax (or Maxblast, sorry i forget which does what). Again, it's a free d/l. The other HD makers also offer proggies free for d/l.

I have read that this must be done 7 times to ensure no one can recover the data. But such data recovery is expensive, as I understand it. So I don't know why someone would go to this trouble "just" to see what was on your drive. But if the drive contains the complete list of your numbered Swiss bank accounts, or a record of your all your unprosecuted felonies, then destry the HD. You s/b able to afford in those cases. JK

 

[Auric]

Boot & Nuke is free and prolly more secure than the manufacturers' offerings.

 

[bluewall21]

Darik's Boot and Nuke

It's what the National Nuclear Security Administration uses.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: Auric
Boot & Nuke is free and prolly more secure than the manufacturers' offerings.

"DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect,"

Shnikies. I think I'll burn the floppy after I use this.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: KnightPalatine
You can get a 15-day free trial of CyberScrub. This is what the (expletive deleted) Feds use.

If you find it useful enough to keep around, the purchase price is $49.95.

Looks like what I need is cybercide and they don't offer a trial version.

 

[neutralizer]

low-level formatting using manufacturer tools. it writes lots of 0s. altho probably professional recovery can still get the data off.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Whenever I've gotten a government left over, I never get the HD with it

 

[Matthias99]

That's because if there was ANY really secure (ie, 'top secret' level clearance data) on the drive, they will physically destroy it instead of selling it. I would wager that ALL disks from secure facilities (places like Lawrence Livermore Labs, FBI/CIA, the white house, etc.) are also physically destroyed when the systems are sold off/disposed of.

A disk-scrubbing utility or low-level format makes it nearly impossible to recover anything; the only way to do so afterwards is by disassembling the drive and analyzing the platters with specialized equipment, which is expensive, difficult, and not always successful. Unless you think the FBI or CIA has you under surveillance and might invest thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars trying to get what's on your computer's hard drive, those utilities should be more than sufficient.

 

[r0guenj]

another vote for darik's boot and nuke (i use beta version 2004022400).....
great (and free) linux based tool where you can specify patterns and # of wipes.

 

[Zepper]

Also Eraser can do an excellent job - 35 (or more, customizable) passes of Gutmann patterns. It's free. Linkage - it includes Darik's Boot & Nuke to do whole drive wipes. You can use Eraser to get rid of the more sensitive stuff while the OS is still present, then DBAN to finish the wipe.
.bh.