Warning to people who format flash drives

[Modelworks]

Just a heads up to people that may be swapping flash drives with friends/relatives and thinking because they formatted them, the data is gone. The only thing formatting does to a flash drive is erase the index of where each file stops and starts. It doesn't touch the individual bytes of your files. Even if you do a full format it does not erase anything from the actual files.

The only way to completely erase the data is to write zero's to the drive.

The same is true for hard drive formats, but its not a big issue because people don't trade those often.
I have friends who were amazed I could recover every file they deleted or formatted on flash drives.

 

[T9D]

Aren't you just talking about a "quick format"? I thought that normal format does write zeros. Isn't a normal format a low level format that writes zeros? Whats the difference then between the quick format and normal format then? I always do it in windows. I figured most people do that and choose the normal format that does in fact write zeros. Am I wrong here?

 

[Ig]

Normal format does the same as quick but also checks the sectors for errors. It's not does not zero fill.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: v1001
Aren't you just talking about a "quick format"? I thought that normal format does write zeros. Isn't a normal format a low level format that writes zeros? Whats the difference then between the quick format and normal format then? I always do it in windows. I figured most people do that and choose the normal format that does in fact write zeros. Am I wrong here?

Yep you are wrong.
Quick format just erases the MFT/FAT or the index of the files.
Full format erases the MFT/FAT and checks to see if each sector is readable, but does not actually write any data over the sectors.

The only format that removes data is a low level format and that actually can turn a drive into a paper weight if done wrong.

Here is a quick test.
Full format a flash drive.
Then use this program:
http://www.x-ways.net/winhex/

Go to tools, open disk.
Pick your flash drive under physical media, NOT under logical drive.
Logical drive will just show you the blank new partition.

Now scroll down through the data.
All of that stuff that is not 00 in value is the stuff that was not erased by the format.

The program can also be used to view the HPA area of hard disk, that not even dban erases.

 

[DarkRogue]

The DBAN v2.0 beta supposedly wipes the HPA, if people use that.

 

[Goldfish4209]

Or if you're lazy, just copy some large file to the drive over and over again until you've filled the drive, then delete it all.

 

[shangshang]

Originally posted by: Goldfish4209
Or if you're lazy, just copy some large file to the drive over and over again until you've filled the drive, then delete it all.

How about fill the drive with porn files and then delete them all. Now if some tries to recover the drive, he'll have a little grin on his face thinking that he just hit the motherload.

 

[jmmtn4aj]

Originally posted by: shangshang

Originally posted by: Goldfish4209
Or if you're lazy, just copy some large file to the drive over and over again until you've filled the drive, then delete it all.

How about fill the drive with porn files and then delete them all. Now if some tries to recover the drive, he'll have a little grin on his face thinking that he just hit the motherload.

I think porn is the only reason most people want to write zeroes in the first place..

 

[Lorne]

Shush people, Your runing my fun.

Camera cards are the best, You can image the card really fast and pull the deleted images out at your own leasure.
Ive seen everything from girls letting there bf take pictures of them to some material that involved having to inform the athoraties.

Yeah you can leave the regular porn on as its no big deal and as mentioned above would be to copy a large batch on then delete it as it overwrites the real naughties.

 

[Foxery]

This has been true for all PC storage media since the 1980s... it has nothing to do with Flash.

 

[Raoul Duke]

I've been using this for quite a while for memory cards that have issues.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec