zero filling/low level formatting a HDD

[Guest]

Hi ...

Am thinking of donating some old work PCs to charity and want to completely
erase the data, formatting obviously is not sufficent. Is doing a Zero
fill/low level format using the HDD manufacturers utiliites good enough ? or
is also best to
use Darik's Boot and Nuke and do a RCMP TSSIT OPS-II or DoD 5220-22.M wipe
instead ?? or as well as
thanks for your opinions

 

[Juan Perez]

Hi:

Well done. In that way, you will protect your privacy and confidential data.

There is several utilities to format your harddisk drives. Normally you do
not low level format your HDD, this is done just once in by the
manufacturer. Filling your HDD with Zeros is normally enought to delete your
data.

My advice is to check the drive manufacturers web site for drive utility.One
example is this from hitachi that I used to sold a HDD in Ebay. It has the
optio to format it with zeros.

Drive Fitness Test (v4.08)
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

I think you can use in any HDD.

I hope this helps.

 

[Ken Blake]

Am thinking of donating some old work PCs to charity and want to
completely erase the data, formatting obviously is not sufficent. Is
doing a Zero fill/low level format using the HDD manufacturers
utiliites good enough ? or is also best to
use Darik's Boot and Nuke and do a RCMP TSSIT OPS-II or DoD 5220-22.M
wipe instead ?? or as well as
thanks for your opinions

There is no simple answer. It depends on how paranoid you want to be.
Realize that no matter *what* you do, there is always a remnant of what was
written still present on the disk, and using sophisticated techniques, a
determined invader can sometimes recover it.For that reason, the US
government doesn't rely on any software techniques to destroy really
sensitive data, but physically melts the drive in a furnace.

Most of us don't need that kind of security. Depending on what is on the
drive, and recognizing that most people will neither know how, nor want to
bother trying, to recover any old data on the drive, a simple format is
sufficient for most people. And for the enormous majority of people a
zero-fill is more than sufficient. If it were me, I wouldn't go any further
than that.

 

[Jonny]

Hi ...

Am thinking of donating some old work PCs to charity and want to
completely
erase the data, formatting obviously is not sufficent. Is doing a Zero
fill/low level format using the HDD manufacturers utiliites good enough ?
or
is also best to
use Darik's Boot and Nuke and do a RCMP TSSIT OPS-II or DoD 5220-22.M wipe
instead ?? or as well as
thanks for your opinions

The degree of overwriting is only as needed compared to the imporatance of
preventing that data from prying eyes, and who owns those eyes. In some
cases, a simple format is adequate.

 

[Plato]

Am thinking of donating some old work PCs to charity and want to completely
erase the data, formatting obviously is not sufficent. Is doing a Zero
fill/low level format using the HDD manufacturers utiliites good enough ? or

Yes...