Erasing Information on Hard Drives

Yeah, KeyWalker had the best piece of advise in the previous thread you referenced too.

Hard drives are cheap enough now days to just buy another and keep the other as stated for a backup. If you are like me, you will one day be glad you did keep the other when something comes your way and you remember," I have that on my old drive".

Cheers!

I belive reformating the entire drive will wipe it.

if you delete files i beleive the process just removes the title from drive but leave the data, which can be written over.

re formating deletes every thing.

But if it was me i think i would keep it.

Reformatting does not wipe all the information on the drive it only remove the index of where the information are stored. There are many programs on the market and even free programs that can retrieve information from a formatted drive.

Use a program like dBan to wipe your drive. It rewrites the the drive three time with zero's then again with ones and again with zero's. Google the net for programs that can wipe your drive.

I stand corrected.

Ignore me and listen to the others.

sorry

Data never get destroyed our of hard drive. It is like human brain if stored generally stay but we loose ability to bring it back and we individual needs different degree of memory jogging to bring it back.

Same thing is with hard drive it depends o n ability of programmer to bring the old data back.

One time on business I have to hire organization to recreate all file out of computer of misbehaved fired employee

Obviously, the government is experienced in this sort of thing. Even a physically mangled drive can be effectively probed with effort and resources.

The NSA has a procedure/software to reliably erase a hard drive. As mentioned, it involves repeatedly writing and re-writing data to every storage element to force the little molecules in the medium to a completely ignorant state. I seem to recall nine times being the fashionable number, but could be wrong.

Assuming you're not storing Top Secret+ information, it should be completely adequate to use one of the free or commercial wiping programs. Hanging onto the disk as a backup is a good idea, but if your data is especially sensitive you need to consider physical security. (For most of us, locking our doors is adequate.)

Reformatting does not erase the data.

Only a special program that overwrites the data area many times actually gets rid of the data. A DOD erase will be the best.

Using a magnet will randomly destroy some data, but not all, also it will make the drive completely unuseable (for normal people only) and may cause the manufacturer to charge you for the replacement....thze FBI can still get good data off it!!

A DOD erasure is best.....

Use this link for some free stuff or search with "DOD disk erase":-

http://ptf.com/dod/dod+erase+disk/

DOD = Department of Defence. Their standards are the best.....

Or you could erase all the data under windows, then write some large file many times till its full. Erase them all, write a different large file till its full, do that 256 times.....

The DOD eraser is the best way to go......

Its sometimes also called disk wiping.....

Only a special program that overwrites the data area many times actually gets rid of the data. A DOD erase will be the best.

Would you like a link to a free DOD program to un-erase the DOD erase and retrieve the data?

For real? Send it on; sounds interesting.....

I already posted links for such software.

I found one at 001Micron that will retrieve all deleted and erased files and folders guaranteed. I have an IDE hard drive I will try this on with the NTFS.

I have had this hard drive in my desk after I had wiped it and 001Micron said they would give me a free copy to try so I could see the results.

Thanks for your reply.

It's unlikely a magnet will wipe a drive unless it is a very, very, very strong magnet but even then the data can be recovered.

The most effective way to wipe information from a hard drive is with a hammer. Beat the drive to pieces and recycle it. No more worries.

A program that some of the feds use to wash the HD is called Windows Washer. I used it and it works...in one case too well. You'll want to run it through the maximum wash which takes some time, but it cleans almost everything off permanently. MIT tested several disk washers and their conclusion was that the best practice is to use a 16 oz. framing hammer to shatter the disk into thousands of mini-disks, then burn it.

A 12V battery charger and coil of wire create a dandy EMF but if not careful to much energy will cook the drive

Download HD wipe software. They'll write a few patterns to the HD so residual analysis will be more difficult.

Hey, I don't know if it has been mentioned above, but click here and I believe you will be satsified with what it will do for you. There will be nothing left on the hard drive that will be useful to anyone. Also the manftr will not be upset with you in anyway.

Hope this helps you and apologies if someone has already give this link as their advice to you.