Just two steps:Looking to dispose without compromising personal data.
I can take to council recycling depot, but how do I wipe it clean?
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda bs=16M count=3
I was only messing.Thanks all.
Contain private financial stuff.
A quick format wouldn't, but a low level format would. I've done this before to test. Didn't retrieve a 'bit' lolHammer. Make sure you smash the spindle AND the discs.
Quick format wont cut it. A surface scan would retrieve approx 80%. I've retrieved thousands of photos for customers who've accidentally re formatted.
Speaking of which. I have a hard disc mounted in a picture frame at the other halfs place. They are quite impressive looking things inside.I gave the HD from my old desktop to my two grandsons aged 13 and 10 with my tool bag. They managed to take it apart and destroy it quite well.
My apologies most people confuse the two and I thought you meant quick.A quick format wouldn't, but a low level format would. I've done this before to test. Didn't retrieve a 'bit' lol
A surface scan would retrieve approx 80%.
If the files weren't fragmented, and you haven't written anything else to the drive since the deletion, then the chances of recovery are excellent. The tools folks use for pulling stuff back off deleted memory cards would be a good place to start.Out of interest, how easy is this? Deleted some things off an old hard driver but wouldn't mind getting them back
There are several free recovery software programmes, Like Recuva. Whatever one you choose you should get a window asking what you want to do. Choose the drive your photos or documents were on. Select what you want the software to scan for eg jpg or docx etc. It will do a surface scan, scanning the whole drive. As already said some will be corrupted. Those that aren't, the software will find. It will take a long time and please note it may find photos you deleted some time ago, whatever they are. Assuming you're scanning your c drive from your c drive you will need an alternative place (usb drive?) to save the recovered data to. If you're searching for photos it will find a lot, including all the small icons that the system and other programmes use. To sift the results I list them by size order which gives you an indication of where the real photos begin. Happy hunting.Out of interest, how easy is this? Deleted some things off an old hard driver but wouldn't mind getting them back
I usually assault the HDD platters with an angle grinder
If the files weren't fragmented, and you haven't written anything else to the drive since the deletion, then the chances of recovery are excellent. The tools folks use for pulling stuff back off deleted memory cards would be a good place to start.
There are several free recovery software programmes, Like Recuva. Whatever one you choose you should get a window asking what you want to do. Choose the drive your photos or documents were on. Select what you want the software to scan for eg jpg or docx etc. It will do a surface scan, scanning the whole drive. As already said some will be corrupted. Those that aren't, the software will find. It will take a long time and please note it may find photos you deleted some time ago, whatever they are. Assuming you're scanning your c drive from your c drive you will need an alternative place (usb drive?) to save the recovered data to. If you're searching for photos it will find a lot, including all the small icons that the system and other programmes use. To sift the results I list them by size order which gives you an indication of where the real photos begin. Happy hunting.
Brian
Have they been reformatted and the photos "lost"?Cheers!
It is some old photos. It's hard drives from my laptops from when I was younger, loads of old school photos etc.
Have these been reformated Have they been reformatted and the photos "lost"?
Or are you just trying to get the photos off of the old drives?
Ok fine. Try what I suggested.Not reformatted. I cleared just deleted things off them before I took them out of the laptops to use as external drives but not had to use them yet.