Permantly erasing all data on a harddisk

[BeTomXXX]

Hi,

I was wondering if it is possble to erase a hardisk completly without it beeing possble for anyone to recover the files. not even a data lab!

 

[ZobarStyl]

Lol hiding the pr0n?

 

[imported_CyberWire]

easily done...
gasoline + match = bye bye data

 

[BeTomXXX]

What is prOn ))
Where can I get that program called gasoline + match??

 

[Idoxash]

Hey dude ~~~ check out these sties and tools for wut you need

Darik's Boot and Nuke: http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Eraser: http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

Both work great for wut your looking for ~~~

--Idoxash

 

[BeTomXXX]

thanks for the information Idoxash

 

[oneshot47]

Depends on if you want to be able to use it after you do it.... My dad was the head of computer forensics for the air force office of special investigations for a while, believe me, its hard to completely destroy every bit of data. burning the platters would do it, or maybe taking a belt sander to them.

 

[GnomeCop]

when I still had a floppy drive. I used a program called killdisk.

 

[Idoxash]

Yah that would work huh oneshot47, but if he's like me then all he would need is a good clean hard drive to start all over on not to go out and buy another one. In either way ~~~ I hope the info I provided is at least looked at. Both tools are great and I use them a lot just to have a clean drive ~~~ I keep all my priv data on a secure usb card.

--Idoxash

 

[IPLaw]

If the data has any residual value, and you don't need the capacity, you could just encrypt it with a suitable strong encryption program, like PGP with a 1024 bit or larger key.

 

[oneshot47]

Originally posted by: Idoxash
Yah that would work huh oneshot47, but if he's like me then all he would need is a good clean hard drive to start all over on not to go out and buy another one. In either way ~~~ I hope the info I provided is at least looked at. Both tools are great and I use them a lot just to have a clean drive ~~~ I keep all my priv data on a secure usb card.

--Idoxash

Yea, i provided only the most extreme examples, i dont know also if hes serious or just asking out of curiosity. Any of those disk wiping programs are fine for anything hes doing.

 

[BeTomXXX]

I'm both curieus and serieus.

i have read an article that confirms that it is indeed very hard to completly remove every bit af data on a harddisk.
I also have ashampoo winoptimiser. and there is an option to wipe files by "military" standards. what it does is write 3x FF over it, 3x 00 over it and 1 x random. But hell does this take a lot of time. They state that there is no way known to recover the data.

But i was wondering what if the data is alread erased, but I still wont to be shure the erased data can not be recoverd.

All tools here except dban I think does not erase this data. But I don't wont to run it beacause it erases all data and not the erased data (damn this is hard to explain).

 

[Aleksandar]

hehe man i understand you i think northon had a util to recover deleted files then you can delete them again

 

[OMG1Penguin]

try BCwipe (program) or a degausser (big electromagnet thing)

 

[bfonnes]

I think I read in Computer Shopper once that you have to write a drive over 7 times before the data is unrecognizable.
Bfonnes

 

[Davegod75]

Originally posted by: Idoxash
Hey dude ~~~ check out these sties and tools for wut you need

Darik's Boot and Nuke: http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Eraser: http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

Both work great for wut your looking for ~~~

--Idoxash

dban is a nice product....

 

[MercenaryForHire]

dban, end of thread.

But if you need to use dban, you should be physically destroying the disc, preferably by fire.

- M4H

 

[Arcanedeath]

Just use your HDD manufacturs setup disk to write 0's or 1's to the drive 10+ times (military only requires 7 times for their standards) and it will be virtualy impossible to get any of your old data from the drive. it's also a free easy to use utility that all the major HDD makers provid.

 

[SneakyStuff]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
dban, end of thread.

But if you need to use dban, you should be physically destroying the disc, preferably by fire.

- M4H

Exactly, get that sucker nice and wet in gasoline, or alchohol, light a match, step WAAAAY BACK, and say goodbye to your data

 

[lowelo7798]

Do a low-level formatting to the hard drive. The manufacture of the HDD has the diagnostic tools that allows you to do a low-level formatting.

 

[mechBgon]

To overwrite "empty" space on a drive with Win2000 or WinXP, open a command-prompt window and use the command cipher /w:C:\ (where C:\ indicates the C: drive, use the drive letter you want) and Win2000 or WinXP will write three layers of encrypted junk over the top of all available free space (and then delete it again).

I don't know if it qualifies as military-class or anything, but it does what you appear to want. How long it takes will depend on the speed and capacity of your drive. I just launched it on an 18GB 15000rpm SCSI drive and it looks like it'll take about five minutes to complete.

 

[MadOni0n]

nice tools

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

Get a big alluminum desk. Wrap it in copper wire. Hook up a car battery with a remote switch. If anything suspicious happens (fbi at your door) flip the switch.

 

[imported_Reck]

Use BCwipe that program rox. DOD method write, defrag, then run it again. Also write the swap file and all that.

 

[anthrax]

A hard disk degausser will ensure that every thing is cleaned.

http://www.datadev.com/government.html