Buying and selling used memory cards?

[BalSanghera]

Is it a good idea to buy or sell used memory cards? Reason I asks is because of the privacy issue...

There is 100s of photo recovery apps out there and if I was to sell say one of my old cards or buy a cheap card from someone is there still the chance that someone could recover your images even though you have formatted the card?

Im thinking might be better of destroying old cards instead of selling them...

Thread open to friendly discussion...

 

[aligibbs]

Surely a low level format of a card would be enough to stop all but a very few people recovering anything? (Not a normal format)

 

[BalSanghera]

Whats a low level format? Im assuming a normal format is done through the camera and low level format done through PC? I read something about writing all zeros to the card.?

 

[aligibbs]

Low level format is just that, it writes a zero to every single block on the card. Format's done normally in camera/pc just write a bunch of 00's at the start/end of the card. Hence how people can recover the data- its never actually deleted (Well, unless its been overwritten).

 

[andrewc]

You can get software to erase hard drives - this is done by formatting and filling the drive with duff data. I can't see why it wouldn't work on a solid state drive.

 

[neil_g]

yeah theres loads of shredder or eraser apps out there, youd need to run one of those before selling a card to prevent recovery.

 

[-Rob-]

I've just sold a CF card in the classifieds today. I'll be posting it out tomorrow. I've formatted it in the camera. What software would you recommend to completely clear the card with a low level format?

To be honest there is nothing personal on the card so I'm not too bothered if they recover anything that is on there but I may give it a go tonight.

 

[admirable]

Just fill it up with a pile of music files (mp3) and then delete them and repeat.

Most recovery software can only recover files that have been overwritten once, if that.

 

[chrisgeary]

I'd be equally worried about write cycles buying used CFs.

 

[Chaz Photos]

Low level format is just that, it writes a zero to every single block on the card. Format's done normally in camera/pc just write a bunch of 00's at the start/end of the card. Hence how people can recover the data- its never actually deleted (Well, unless its been overwritten).

I think you will find it just remover the first bit from each file record so that it will not show up in the FAT