Clean the Drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter JCO
  • Start date Start date
J

JCO

Not sure where to post this but was hoping I can get a answer from you guys.
A friend wants to wipe a drive clean before giving her computer to Charity.

I want to clean the drive... wipe it clean. I mean shred the HD so that
personal information cannot be revived. I know Norton can do a Wipe, but to
do that... I have to slave the HD onto another computer.

Is there a Floppy type boot that can Wipe the drive clean?
Can Norton Systemworks do this from a CD Boot.

Thanks
 
JCO wrote:
| Not sure where to post this but was hoping I can get a answer from you
| guys. A friend wants to wipe a drive clean before giving her computer to
| Charity.
|
| I want to clean the drive... wipe it clean. I mean shred the HD so that
| personal information cannot be revived. I know Norton can do a Wipe, but
| to do that... I have to slave the HD onto another computer.
|
| Is there a Floppy type boot that can Wipe the drive clean?
| Can Norton Systemworks do this from a CD Boot.
|
| Thanks

Maxtor has a download that you can use to create a bootable utility floppy
disk that you can use to zero-fill harddrives. If you choose to do a full
zero fill - which literally can take hours - best done overnight - then the
utility writes zeros to the entire drive. I don't know how D.O.D. standards
complaint such a utility is, but is effective enough to keep any casual
snoops from finding anything. And because it zaps the first sectors, it also
wipes out any harddrive virus that may have gotten on there.

Essentially the drive is rendered "clean" i.e. like new - all zeros - and
never used..

This is not to say that if a snoop were to send the harddrive to forensic
ananlysis data couldn't be recovered. Even if you set all bits to zero there
is possible magnetic residue from past writes. If that is your worry and to
cover those tracks you need a utility that doesn't just "clean" the drive,
rather writes bogus data to the drive several times over to hide any
magnetic etc. residue. Depends what you want. PGP has a utility you can run
from Windows that does that. Run that first, then full zero-fill and the
drive should be A-OK.

Strategy for the whole works:

Plug drive in as second. Reformat. PGP wipe. Boot to Maxtor floppy. Run full
zero fill on it. Like new.

Strategy to just clean:

Boot to Maxtor floppy. Run full zero fill on it. Like new.
 
KillDisk will make several passes and write 1's and 0's each time to cover
any foresic traces...
~B
 
JCO said:
Not sure where to post this but was hoping I can get a answer from you guys.
A friend wants to wipe a drive clean before giving her computer to Charity.

I want to clean the drive... wipe it clean. I mean shred the HD so that
personal information cannot be revived. I know Norton can do a Wipe, but to
do that... I have to slave the HD onto another computer.

Is there a Floppy type boot that can Wipe the drive clean?
Can Norton Systemworks do this from a CD Boot.

Thanks
Click to expand...


To protect your personal information and data from any future users
of average skills, you should, at the very least, format the hard drive.
If you wish to do a more thorough job of protecting your friend's
personal data, WipeDrive
(http://www.whitecanyon.com/wipedrive-erase-hard-drive.php) meets U.S.
DoD standards for securely cleaning surplus unclassified hard drives,
and could be used before formatting and reinstalling the OS and
applications.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of
chains and slavery? .... I know not what course others may take, but as
for me, give me liberty, or give me death! -Patrick Henry
 
JCO said:
Not sure where to post this but was hoping I can get a answer from
you guys. A friend wants to wipe a drive clean before giving her
computer to Charity.

I want to clean the drive... wipe it clean. I mean shred the HD so
that personal information cannot be revived. I know Norton can do a
Wipe, but to do that... I have to slave the HD onto another computer.
Click to expand...


There's only one way to guarantee that the data can't be recovered, and
that's to physically destroy the disk (which is what the US government does
with sensitive data). There are sophisticated (and expensive) data recovery
techniques that can often recover even overwritten data.

Of course, what lengths you want to go to to make data unrecoverable depends
on what the data is and how paranoid you are. For most people, simply
formatting the drive is enough. If you want to be extra cautious, run anyof
the several freeware/shareware utilities that overwrite the drive. But
realize that perfection isn't possible, short of physical destruction.
 
I'm cheap. To many free software out there for me to pay for it.
Thanks for the input. Symantec, that I own, has the wipe feature too. I
could just slave the drive on my computer and wipe it that way. I'm just
doing her a favor. I think I'm satisfied with what I've found.

Thanks again for your help.
 
Back
Top