How to protect my privacy when selling out the old harddisks?

[smith]

Hi, all. I decided to sell out my old IDE hard disk, and buy one new SATAII
hard disk, but I am worried about my personal information will not be
protected since there is risk that the new owner will restore all the data
in that harddisk. What can I do?

 

[Phisherman]

Hi, all. I decided to sell out my old IDE hard disk, and buy one new SATAII
hard disk, but I am worried about my personal information will not be
protected since there is risk that the new owner will restore all the data
in that harddisk. What can I do?

The government recommends complete destruction of the hard drive using
a hammering action on the platters. A less secure method is to fdisk
and format the drive. Another option is to use a security application
that "scrubs the drive with zeros and ones" several times.

 

[Malke]

Hi, all. I decided to sell out my old IDE hard disk, and buy one new SATAII
hard disk, but I am worried about my personal information will not be
protected since there is risk that the new owner will restore all the data
in that harddisk. What can I do?

You can use this free program to securely wipe it:

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


Malke

 

[smith]

Is it really reliable?

You can use this free program to securely wipe it:

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


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

 

[smith]

How to scrub the drive with zeros and ones? What is the security
application?

 

[Paul]

Is it really reliable?

Modern hard drives have a "secure erase" option built-in. The
utility on this page, offers the ability to set the status bit
in the drive, that controls automated erasure. The idea is,
every time the drive is powered on, it works at the erasure
task. It won't stop erasing, until the entire disk is done.
So, in theory, you can set the bit, using the utility from
this web page, then hand the disk to someone else. The
drive will continue erasing, and ignoring external commands,
even while in the hands of the new buyer/user. Once the erase
command is complete, then the drive returns to normal operation.

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

For your usage, use the utility, set the bit, and watch the drive
light. The light should reflect the fact, that the drive
is autonomously busy and doing its thing. Wait until the
light goes out.

When the test is complete, use a disk editor utility to
examine the drive. Do some random seeks (near both ends of
the disk, at least), to verify it did the whole disk.

I would feel less comfortable, about the kind of drives that
use internal encryption. On those, setting the secure erase,
involves blowing away the key, and leaves the data as is. I
wouldn't feel comfortable relying on the encryption to keep
my data private. So for one of those drives, I'd also want
to do a pass with DBAN (unless the secure erase offered the
option to do it the "physical way").

As long as the drive light stays on for some number of minutes,
after setting the secure erase bit, I'd be reasonably satisfied.
Then I'd do a quick verify, using a disk editor.

Paul

 

[Malke]

How to scrub the drive with zeros and ones? What is the security
application?

I already told you. Yes, Boot and Nuke is very reliable. You could also
use a commercial program such as Acronis Drive Cleaner. This is not a
Windows issue. If you want to know more, do some research using Google.
Here is a search example to get you started:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...ficial&q=securely+wipe+hard+drive&btnG=Search


Malke

 

[Bruce Chambers]

The government recommends complete destruction of the hard drive using
a hammering action on the platters.

Which government? The American Department of Defense relies on
software solutions for the erasure of both non-classified and classified
hard drives. Destructive measures are used primarily on defective
drives only.




--

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

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Hi, all. I decided to sell out my old IDE hard disk, and buy one new SATAII
hard disk, but I am worried about my personal information will not be
protected since there is risk that the new owner will restore all the data
in that harddisk. What can I do?

To protect your personal information and data from any future users
of average skills, you should, at the very least, format the hard drive.
You can do this using the original Installation CD. Simply boot from
the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the opportunity to delete,
create, and format partitions as part of the installation process. (You
may need to re-arrange the order of boot devices in the PC's BIOS to
boot from the CD.)

If you wish to do a more thorough job of protecting your 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

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[Phisherman]

Which government? The American Department of Defense relies on
software solutions for the erasure of both non-classified and classified
hard drives. Destructive measures are used primarily on defective
drives only.

DOE.

 

[M.I.5¾]

Which government? The American Department of Defense relies on software
solutions for the erasure of both non-classified and classified hard
drives. Destructive measures are used primarily on defective drives only.

Only for the lower levels of classification. For the higher levels only
complete destruction of the drive is acceptable. The UK government requires
destruction for any level of classification. The UK government also
requires destruction of FLASH memory sticks that have had classified data in
spite of the fact that, because they work in a different way, total erasure
is easily achieved.

 

[M.I.5¾]

To protect your personal information and data from any future users of
average skills, you should, at the very least, format the hard drive. You
can do this using the original Installation CD. Simply boot from the
WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the opportunity to delete,
create, and format partitions as part of the installation process. (You
may need to re-arrange the order of boot devices in the PC's BIOS to boot
from the CD.)

Formatting the drive doesn't remove the data. It merely writes blank table
of contents and directories. The drive takes some time to format as it
adjusting flags in the sectors. If formatting the disk did overwrite the
data, you would have to wait several hours for it to complete (and some of
us can remember the days when that was the norm).