Erasing data from harddrive

[Fred]

Hello,
I am looking for the recommendation of utilty erasing data from
harddrive.
I need the utilty which:
1. Will NOT stop on errors (disk write errors) but it will continue until
all disk is done
or
2. Will allow me to choose sectors to overwrite.
Thanks,
Fred

 

[Oliver Aichinger]

Hello,
I am looking for the recommendation of utilty erasing data from
harddrive.
I need the utilty which:
1. Will NOT stop on errors (disk write errors) but it will continue until
all disk is done
or
2. Will allow me to choose sectors to overwrite.
Thanks,
Fred

Did you already try DBAN? http://www.dban.org/download

Brgds

Oliver

 

[Fred]

I tried now. It is not good.
Not only does not allow me to select clusters but it does not see my hard
drive at all!
(Partitions were removed by Western Digital utility software)
Fred

 

[olfart]

I tried now. It is not good.
Not only does not allow me to select clusters but it does not see my hard
drive at all!
(Partitions were removed by Western Digital utility software)
Fred

if the partitions were removed so was the data

 

[Fred]

not true at all

if the partitions were removed so was the data

 

[Bennett Marco]

Hello,
I am looking for the recommendation of utilty erasing data from
harddrive.
I need the utilty which:
1. Will NOT stop on errors (disk write errors) but it will continue until
all disk is done
or
2. Will allow me to choose sectors to overwrite.
Thanks,
Fred

Check the manufacturer's website and see if it has a utility for
completely erasing the drive.

 

[Guest]

I use ERASER which is a boot CD & takes 8 - 72 hours to government wipe hard
drives

 

[Fred]

It does.
But unfortunately, writing "0" stops on the first writing error and on any
consecutive error asking me if I want to continue.
I need to bypass that message step, and continue automatically regardless of
errors.
Fred

 

[ANONYMOUS]

Download a trial version from here:

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/download/drivecleanser/

hth

 

[Fred]

Does it allow you to select sectors or will it not stop on errors?

 

[Paul]

Hello,
I am looking for the recommendation of utilty erasing data from
harddrive.
I need the utilty which:
1. Will NOT stop on errors (disk write errors) but it will continue until
all disk is done
or
2. Will allow me to choose sectors to overwrite.
Thanks,
Fred

SecureErase uses a disk erase command in the drive command set.

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

*******

The use of dd_rescue is suggested here. dd_rescue is a version of
dd (Unix Disk Dump) that works around storage devices having errors.

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

I downloaded the Diaz version from here. A very small file, something
you'd build in Linux.

http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/ddrescue/ddrescue-1.8.tar.bz2

This is a comment from the documentation file of that GNU dd_rescue,
in the ddrescue.info file.

"Example 2:

Wipe only the good sectors, leaving the bad sectors alone.
This way, the drive will still test bad (i.e., with unreadable sectors).
This is the fastest way of wiping a failing drive, and is specially
useful when sending the drive back to the manufacturer for warranty
replacement.

ddrescue --fill=+ /dev/zero bad_drive logfile"

So potentially, that is another method to do it.

dd_rescue is also a potential way of verifying the erasure. You
could wipe the drive with zeros first, then attempt data recovery
with dd_rescue in the forward direction, and scan the resulting
output for non-zero data. That would tell you whether any readable
sectors remained.

Any apparent issue with any data erasure method, is the Host Protected
Area. Any disk erasing solutions I've seen, make no promises that they
can properly deal with an HPA. So extra care must be exercised in that
case. Detection of HPA is mentioned here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_protected_area

I haven't tried any of the above. Good luck.

Paul

 

[Chuck]

And the really stupid thing is that in the US, an eraser program is
considered illegal by non computer literate judges!
After all, if you have such a program, it is assumed that you have it for an
illegal purpose, such as maintaining your rights to privacy and security of
your personal papers, etc. (A right that the government has chipped away at
for decades.)

 

[Daave]

Citation?

And the really stupid thing is that in the US, an eraser program is
considered illegal by non computer literate judges!
After all, if you have such a program, it is assumed that you have it
for an illegal purpose, such as maintaining your rights to privacy
and security of your personal papers, etc. (A right that the
government has chipped away at for decades.)

 

[Bennett Marco]

Citation?

What Daave said.

 

[Twayne]

Citation?

There is no citation because the claim if patently wrong. There are
hundreds, if not thousands, of delete/wipe/overwrite/etc. programs
available on the 'net.
Wherever the information came from is incorrect unless the machine
is under a current legal order, in which case it would be confiscated.
I suspect something is missing from the translation.

Twayne`

 

[Shenan Stanley]

<snipped>

There is no citation because the claim if patently wrong.

<snipped>

Something being incorrect does not keep it from having a source to be cited
from. ;-)

 

[Twayne]

<snipped>

<snipped>

Something being incorrect does not keep it from having a source to be
cited from. ;-)

Yeahhhh, technically that's true and you're right. "Citation" in that
context just seemed to give some sort of credit where I don't consider
the source of bad information as being worthy of any kind of credit,
just in case someone misread it. My whole sentence probably shouldn't
even have been written there.

Cheers,

Twayne`

 

[Chuck]

As I understand it--
The government (state?, federal?) brought criminal charges (likely to do
with "kiddy porn")
No evidence of the prohibited matter was found on the accused's systems. The
presence of a popular erase program was found on the systems.
Therefore, the accused was "assumed" to be guilty by the judge, based upon
the presence of the erase program, and other circumstantial evidence.

I had hoped that the ruling & conviction would be appealed, since many use a
similar (or the same) program to cleanup a hard drive before defragging or
compacting.
One of the gov's laptop protection methods involved the use of such a
program. It was automatically started in silent mode if an incorrect user
login was repeated too many times in succession, or other intrusion attempts
were detected. In addition, parts of the laptop's HD were encrypted. (US
made(assembled) "special purpose" Laptops for "critical use"). The laptop
I'm referring to also had a magnesium alloy case, and, if exposed to a good
hot fire, burnt quite well.

<snipped>

<snipped>

Something being incorrect does not keep it from having a source to be
cited from. ;-)

Yeahhhh, technically that's true and you're right. "Citation" in that
context just seemed to give some sort of credit where I don't consider the
source of bad information as being worthy of any kind of credit, just in
case someone misread it. My whole sentence probably shouldn't even have
been written there.

Cheers,

Twayne`