Secure File Deletion

[Guest]

I am interested in writing my own secure file deletion program. I want to be
able to read and write to my hard drive directly. My application will seach
my hard drive for all locations marked for deletion and then replace it with
"x" or something that securely removes previoius data.

My question is what objects, API calls, etc, etc do I use to read and write
directly to the hard drive?
--
Regards,
Shaun Goldston

Liberalism is treason!
Vote Republican

 

[Carl Daniel [VC++ MVP]]

I am interested in writing my own secure file deletion program. I
want to be able to read and write to my hard drive directly. My
application will seach my hard drive for all locations marked for
deletion and then replace it with "x" or something that securely
removes previoius data.

My question is what objects, API calls, etc, etc do I use to read and
write directly to the hard drive?

CreateFile, ReadFile, WriteFile. For compressed or encrypted files on NTFS,
you need to use the backup APIs to access the file so that you're dealing in
the underlying file, not the de-compressed/un-encrypted bits.

Do some research - there are articles on the .NET on how to do all of this,
and there are several products that do exactly what you want.

Some security experts recommend up to 35 overwrites with a specific series
of patterns to ensure that data can't be recovered. Others state that the
only way to securely delete something is to physically destroy the disk
drive by grinding it into dust.

-cd

 

[Tamas Demjen]

Some security experts recommend up to 35 overwrites with a specific series
of patterns to ensure that data can't be recovered. Others state that the
only way to securely delete something is to physically destroy the disk
drive by grinding it into dust.

You never know what future technology will be able to do. If there is
unlimited amount of money, you can even restore shreaded paper, by
scanning every little piece and sequencing them using image matching
software:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3279055.stm

Those who ordered the shreadding certainly couldn't foresee today's
technology, and thought they were perfectly safe. So cutting the hard
disk into 100 pieces may not be enough, but grinding it into fine dust
seems to be sufficient at this point.

Tom

 

[Guest]

I've Googled this before and nothing comes back that addresses my problem
specifically.

Let me elaborate myself. I want my program to search each individual
location on my hard drive for locations specified for deletion. I don't want
to select a file through my application and have it run through its' "secure
file deletion" algorithm. Basically I want to use "pointers" to point to hard
drive locations just like pointers point to memory locations.

I'm doing this just for fun and I'm completely aware of the dangers involved
(ie losing all my data).

--
Regards,
Shaun Goldston

Liberalism is treason!
Vote Republican