Wiping Win2000 partiton

[Allan]

Hello,

I am running W2K and want to clean a partition of all the remains of
all deleted files.

I wiped it using BCWipe, with 7 writeovers, and with the Disk Scrubber
v2.1.

Both applications work from within the W2K GUI.

Then I downloaded a demo version of an application that recovers
files, and it found most all of the files, even though the partition
had been wiped by two different applications.

Question: Does Win2000 allow wiping? Or does one need to boot from a
DOS disk, and then wipe?

The drives and partitions are NTFS.

Thanks in advance.

Allan

 

[Miha Pihler [MVP]]

Hi Allan,

Try SDelete (free) tool from www.sysinternals.com
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/SDelete.html

I am not sure about Windows 2000, but on Windows XP and Windows 2003 you can
also use tool called cipher that comes with Windows.

This option would remove all data from unused disk space on the entire d:
drive.

cipher /w:d:\

 

[Allan]

Hi, and thanks.

I found cipher in Win2000 and ran it against a small partition "H" to
test it. The "H" partition is only 8 gigs large. It didn't have the W
parameter (cipher /?), but the W parameter appears to work anyway.

I'll run it agains the "D" partition, but it will take all night since
"D" is 30 gigs.

Cipher did not nail the one file that shows as recoverable on the
small "H" partition.

I downloaded SDelete, and attempted to run it, but so far, it insists
on applying itself to the "C" drive. Is there a way to point it to the
"D" partition?

I tried the same switches in your cipher example, but it wants to be
told something else.

Thanks again.

Allan

 

[Miha Pihler [MVP]]

Hi,

sdelete -p 3 -z d:

will go to drive d: with 3 wipe passes...

Did you actually try and recover the file in readable format? File names are
stored in different part of the hard drive (partition) then data itself.

 

[Allan]

Hi Mike,

No, I did not try and recover the file. I have no way to retrieve
just one file. However it's a scan in jpeg format, and what appears to
be a complete thumbnail was presented by eIMAGE Recovery's Preview
Pane. It's only a Demo for evaluation, and won't retrieve. That file
is on a tiny H partition. On the D partition, eIMAGE Recovery found
bouqou files. Some were marked Damaged; most appeared intact.

I'll start the sdelete as per your example, and report back. It's
sitting on 1% and has to clean the free space of a 30 gig partition,
so this may take a while.

Once complete, I am thinking that Norton's Unerase would provide a
good test, along with eImage Recovery's application.


Allan