Cleaning a drive before giving it away

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Anonymous

A friend at work told me that he was giving a hard drive to his
neighbor and he wanted to completely clean it exactly as if it had just
been shipped by the manufacturer, and he asked me if there was a
freeware product that could wipe a drive to THAT specification---where
there was absolutely NOTHING on it.

I told him that I didn't know about that because I've never had to do
it before and don't anticipate ever doing it in the future. But he
still needs his question answered.

Anyone know of a freeware product that will erase a hard drive to the
point that it was when the manufacturer shipped it?
 
Anonymous said:
A friend at work told me that he was giving a hard drive to his neighbor
and he wanted to completely clean it exactly as if it had just been
shipped by the manufacturer, and he asked me if there was a freeware
product that could wipe a drive to THAT specification---where there was
absolutely NOTHING on it.

I told him that I didn't know about that because I've never had to do it
before and don't anticipate ever doing it in the future. But he still
needs his question answered.

Anyone know of a freeware product that will erase a hard drive to the
point that it was when the manufacturer shipped it?
Click to expand...
Gdisk does the trick.

google for a place to download the gdisk.exe file.

Make a bootdisk with gdisk.exe on it, boot, and run a:

gdisk 'disknumber' /DISKWIPE /DOD (more switches here:
http://tinyurl.com/e3e95 )

This will erase your disk according to the DoD 5200.28-STD (DEPARTMENT
OF DEFENSE STANDARD)..

Im not entierly sure if gdisk.exe itself is free, or if its legal to use
only when shipped with a symantec ghost product..
 
A friend at work told me that he was giving a hard drive to his
neighbor and he wanted to completely clean it exactly as if it had just
been shipped by the manufacturer, and he asked me if there was a
freeware product that could wipe a drive to THAT specification---where
there was absolutely NOTHING on it.
Click to expand...

Did you consider reformatting the drive? That should be plenty to keep
your friend safe from a nosy neighbor, and you don't need an extra
program to do that if you're using a Win OS.

Interestingly enough, Fred Langa has a current article that touches on
this topic at www.informationweek.com .
 
B.Lauritzen said:
Gdisk does the trick.

google for a place to download the gdisk.exe file.

Make a bootdisk with gdisk.exe on it, boot, and run a:

gdisk 'disknumber' /DISKWIPE /DOD (more switches here:
http://tinyurl.com/e3e95 )

This will erase your disk according to the DoD 5200.28-STD (DEPARTMENT OF
DEFENSE STANDARD)..

Im not entierly sure if gdisk.exe itself is free, or if its legal to use
only when shipped with a symantec ghost product..
Click to expand...

But these don't do what the OP asked as they leave the disk full of random
data and still partitioned with a boot sector. What you need is a low level
or zero fill utility suggest you look at one from the hdd manufacturer.
Seagate's util is explained here for example:

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/ata_llfmt_what.html#what


Zero Filling an ATA (IDE) drive destroys 100% of the data on the drive. Make
sure the drive is completely backed up before proceeding.

Peter
 
Did you consider reformatting the drive? That should be plenty to keep
your friend safe from a nosy neighbor, and you don't need an extra
program to do that if you're using a Win OS.
Click to expand...

If the neighbor (or anyone else who gets their hands on the
drive) is nosy at all, reformatting will be useless.

I've used 'Darik's Boot and Nuke' <http://dban.sourceforge.net>
that Guy mentioned above, and it's simple and effective.

RR
 
Rodney said:
If the neighbor (or anyone else who gets their hands on the
drive) is nosy at all, reformatting will be useless.

I've used 'Darik's Boot and Nuke' <http://dban.sourceforge.net>
that Guy mentioned above, and it's simple and effective.

RR
Click to expand...

Sounds like absolutely required program for any and all bad guys <sigh>

Feds pounding on the door? Stick in machine and reboot, then hit enter.
 
Sounds like absolutely required program for any and all bad guys <sigh>

Feds pounding on the door? Stick in machine and reboot, then hit enter.
Click to expand...

I didn't realize you had to be a bad guy to not want strangers
reading your emails, account numbers, passwords, etc. Anyway,
do you think the feds will be willing to wait the 12+ hours it
may take to finish the job?

RR
 
Nothing but a big hammer will make a HD unreadable.

For a quick & really clean HD, I use this.

WIPE OUT
http://www.lurkhere.com/~nicefiles/index.html
http://www.lurkhere.com/~nicefiles/wipeout.zip
Freeware.
WIPE OUT: as the name implies, this utility will absolutely WIPE your
hard drive. For those times when an industrial strength cleaner is
needed to remove any pesky files Fdisk may have left behind. A readme
file is included in the zip file. WARNING...WIPE OUT will remove ALL
data from the Hard Drive.

DIRECTIONS

1- Unzip file
2- Copy WIPEOUT to a Win9x boot disk
3- Boot with Win9x disk, make sure the bios is set to boot from floppy
1st.
4- At the A:\> type "wipeout c: /nq /np" (no quotes)
/nq = no queries - you will not be asked if you are sure.
/np = no partitions - this will overwrite the MBR

Press Enter.

Now run fdisk to set up partitions.
http://fdisk.radified.com/
When done, reboot & format.
 
Rodney said:
I didn't realize you had to be a bad guy to not want strangers
reading your emails, account numbers, passwords, etc. Anyway,
do you think the feds will be willing to wait the 12+ hours it
may take to finish the job?

RR
Click to expand...

Glad to hear it takes a long time.

Lou
 
Anonymous said:
A friend at work told me that he was giving a hard drive to his
neighbor and he wanted to completely clean it exactly as if it had
just been shipped by the manufacturer, and he asked me if there was a
freeware product that could wipe a drive to THAT
specification---where there was absolutely NOTHING on it.

I told him that I didn't know about that because I've never had to do
it before and don't anticipate ever doing it in the future. But he
still needs his question answered.

Anyone know of a freeware product that will erase a hard drive to the
point that it was when the manufacturer shipped it?
Click to expand...



Hi Anonym!



It?s nearly impossible to delete a HD, so far I heard about. Similar to
Iron Printings (Engine Number etc..), you can collect data from
previous writes, even they have been overwritten. Special
Data-Specialists, Companies respectively.

Maybe low-level formatting (some times), could reach. You can find
HD-Tools for various HD Brands with the low-level format tool, straight
on the manufacurers WWW Site. Mostly DOS Boot Disks !!! (needs a time -
low-level formatting!)



Best Regards,

Daniel Mandic
 
A friend at work told me that he was giving a hard drive to his
neighbor and he wanted to completely clean it exactly as if it had just
been shipped by the manufacturer, and he asked me if there was a
freeware product that could wipe a drive to THAT specification---where
there was absolutely NOTHING on it.

I told him that I didn't know about that because I've never had to do
it before and don't anticipate ever doing it in the future. But he
still needs his question answered.

Anyone know of a freeware product that will erase a hard drive to the
point that it was when the manufacturer shipped it?
Click to expand...


The chances are slim that the neighbour will be bothered and or would have
the know how and probably not the patience to regain data to a readable state
from even after standard format let alone a low level format... is probably
not even worth worrying about...

Personally just FDisk it, then format it Either standard or low level),
install an OS,
 
It?s nearly impossible to delete a HD, so far I heard about. Similar to
Iron Printings (Engine Number etc..), you can collect data from
previous writes, even they have been overwritten. Special
Data-Specialists, Companies respectively.

Maybe low-level formatting (some times), could reach. You can find
HD-Tools for various HD Brands with the low-level format tool, straight
on the manufacurers WWW Site. Mostly DOS Boot Disks !!! (needs a time -
low-level formatting!)[/QUOTE]

Pretty handy when more and more PCs are shipping without FDDs. 8-)

Cheers, Phred.
 
Phred said:
Pretty handy when more and more PCs are shipping without FDDs. 8-)

Cheers, Phred.
Click to expand...


Well, then you make a bootable CD. Although, the Floppy is still
unbeaten in such small bootup-apps! Cheaper.




Kind Regards,

Daniel Mandic
 
A friend at work told me that he was giving a hard drive to his
neighbor and he wanted to completely clean it exactly as if it had just
been shipped by the manufacturer, and he asked me if there was a
freeware product that could wipe a drive to THAT specification---where
there was absolutely NOTHING on it.

I told him that I didn't know about that because I've never had to do
it before and don't anticipate ever doing it in the future. But he
still needs his question answered.

Anyone know of a freeware product that will erase a hard drive to the
point that it was when the manufacturer shipped it?
Click to expand...

If the maker has a utility that does "destructive" testing, or which
does a low (actually mid) level format / zero fill with bad sector
replacement, then the drive will be both clean and tested.

While "secure" erase requires many overwrites or preferably physical
destruction, a single overwrite puts data beyond anything other than
forensic recovery, certainly beyond any tools available to users or
ordinary computer technicians.
 
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