Wiping the HDD?

minimeeze

minimeeze

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Hi
Just after some advice. As some of you already know, I'm emigrating to Canada pretty soon :woot: and I've decided that I'll buy a new desktop PC out there. I'm planning on selling my current PC & monitor (yeah, I know it's worth b****r all but it's no good to me now) and wanted to know if there's a decent (free) downloadable program that I can wipe the hard drive with? There is nothing at all dodgy on the HDD I hasten to add - just don't want someone stumbling across all my personal info, that's all :)

Thanks
 
I pretty sure you will have to smash it up to remove all data or use a strong magnet to wipe it.
 
What capacity is your existing HD?

If its a smallish size then why not just smash it up & be safe.

If its a large capacity,purchase an external enclosure & keep it for
storage purposes.
 
badronald said:
I pretty sure you will have to smash it up to remove all data or use a strong magnet to wipe it.
Click to expand...

nope...the kill disc software uses the same algorithms as the US DoD use to securely erase data.

using a strong magnet is not as reliable as using the above software as you can sometime retrieve data that has been "erased" using a magnet.
 
I'd recommend KillDisk, but if you REALLY want to make sure your personal data is never got hold of, KillDisk, killdisk again, strong magnet all over it, smash the platters with a large hammer then deposit in seawater! That should do the trick. Paranoid, moi?!
 
snoop69 said:
What capacity is your existing HD?

If its a smallish size then why not just smash it up & be safe.

If its a large capacity,purchase an external enclosure & keep it for
storage purposes.
Click to expand...

Wont the potential buyer be a bit upset that the computer comes with slightly more hard-wired partitioning method than they anticipated :lol:
 
re-install windows, when you get to the partition bit, remove partition, make new partition, install (dont use quick format)

once windows is up, find a big file (off a DVD perhaps) and copy multiple version to your hard drive

fill your hard drive with it. (filling th ehard drive completely is key)

then repeat the whole process from scratch.

pain in the bum, but there would then be no way of getting back to your original data. it is all these "disk wipe" thing do, only they do it 6 times to be sure
 
6 times? Try ~35 if you perform the Gutmanns wiping process, like you should ;)
 
Take it out and take it with you......

If not smash in to bits and keep the disc,it makes a great light reflector.
 
if you write to every part of the hard drive, twice is enough.
 
Copying files to the disc whilst in widows achieves precisely nothing if someone really wants your data. It also takes forever because of the file system overhead.

Use dban instead.

It is as good as the software authorised for wiping hard drives with rather more sensitive data on than your own hard disc.

It is quick (ish) and does what it says on the tin.

With modern disc hardware, the 35 overwrites are completely over the top - there used to be an explanation linked from the dban website; linkie... 3 are enough, one set of 0 bits, one set of 1 bits, then one set of random bits.

The other totally reliable way of doing it is to dismantle the device and sand the surfaces off the platters.

BTW any magnet you have lying around is highly unlikely indeed to be strong enough to wipe the data so don't bother with that approach.

B.
 
Thanks for all the info and advice. From what I seem to be reading on here then, most of you would advise to destroy the HDD rather than erase/overwrite it? What are the chances of someone getting hold of my personal/bank details if I used one of the free erasing programs?

I did want to sell the PC in a useable state, but now I'm confused. I'd hate to think that someone had access to my personal/financial details :help:
 
minimeeze said:
I did want to sell the PC in a useable state, but now I'm confused. I'd hate to think that someone had access to my personal/financial details :help:
Click to expand...

Buy a cheep HD from Fleabay & sell it useable.

Keep the original as spare or use it externally :thumbs:
 
If you use one of the free wipe programs, you will be safe from most attempts at data recovery, I would suggest the cost of indepth recovery after proper use of one of the diskwiping programs and the a reformat and reinstall of the OS will be far greater than any easy / worthwile gain. unless you are so super rich :lol::lol:
 
I accidentially screwed my storage drive, formatted it and repartitioned it and the file system ended up buggered which is quite commonly known as being non-recoverable because many of the file recovery programs couldn't even read the partition to do a recover (serious soilage on my part).

Some of the recovery programs that could do a deep surface scan could recover a fair amount but in cluster format (no labels or file structure etc).

However, I did come across some software which not only recovered the entire drive but also their original names and folder structures.

My dad who is ex MoD told me that they never sell their hard drives but physically destroy them because even hard drives that have been burnt could be recovered by specialists.

It's unlikely that someone who bought your computer could afford or know people that could do such recovery, however, if you wanted to be 100% safe then why don't you just take the hard drive out and replace it with a super cheap 40GB one and stick windows on it. As said, use your existed HD in an external enclosure (about £20) as a backup.

If the stuff on it isn't super sensitive and you don't want to bother with replacing it then I'd do the following:

Wipe the drive using a 7 pass system.
Repartition it into several small drives.
Repartition it back to one big drive.
Defrag the drive
Do a registry repair/clean


Defragmenting the hard drive helps because as you probably know deleting stuff simply tells the OS that it can write data to that part on the hard drive but doesn't actually delete the data. Using a 7 pass deletion system should actually overwrite the files with null values before deleting them which helps with security but defragmenting will also rewrite data into areas that have been classified as useable space.
 
>>What are the chances of someone getting hold of my personal/bank details if I used one of the free erasing programs?

None. If you use dban, there is no chance of them getting your data back without the aid of a huge amount of expensive equipment and loads of time. Are your details that valuable? I somehow doubt it.

After a dban, the disc is, effectively, in the same state as it was when it left the factory.

>>I did want to sell the PC in a useable state,

It will be perfectly usable, but won't have anything on the hard disc, no windows, no file structure, nothing except the drive servo information and sectors filled with random data.

B.
 
Wipe the drive using a 7 pass system.
Repartition it into several small drives.
Repartition it back to one big drive.
Defrag the drive
Do a registry repair/clean
Click to expand...

Doing all that will just take more time than dban and a swift reinstall of windows.

7 passes are completely unnecessary. 3 will do (all 0s all 1s and random bits). But you can't do those erasure passes in windows for all sorts of reasons.

Repartitioning just alters a few sectors at the beginning of the drive. Achieves precisely nothing WRT data security. Data recovery tools don't bother with partitions...

Defrag will overwrite some of the drive, however it is completely unreliable & doesn't touch the MFT or the Pagefile. You could use Eraser to clear out free space and file tips, but that just takes extra time.

registry repair/clean won't do the proper job either. It will get rid of some but possibly not all information.

The only way to be certain that data is unavailable to anyone is to sand the platters, as I mentioned before.

The next best thing is a software erase like dban.

Anything else will leave stuff behind for anyone who cares to take the trouble to find it.
 
If you want to ensure that nobody snoops your HDD contents then a swift blow with a hammer is the only truly 100% effective method . . .
 
There is a trick using ghost that we tweaked for the goverment along time ago.. it will completely wipe NTFS/FAT and set every bite to 0 destroying any trace of info on the disk.. you can't even read it with a microscope ( I know we sent one off to test it). If anyone wants me to post the file I'll make one up at work.. fits on a floppy.. but i wont let you have the auto exe that kills your HD from boot up..way to dangerous :P
 
minimeeze said:
Thanks for all the info and advice. From what I seem to be reading on here then, most of you would advise to destroy the HDD rather than erase/overwrite it? What are the chances of someone getting hold of my personal/bank details if I used one of the free erasing programs?

I did want to sell the PC in a useable state, but now I'm confused. I'd hate to think that someone had access to my personal/financial details :help:
Click to expand...


iirc the free version of kill disk only performs 1 pass.

This is by no means an effective way of wiping the drive as you need to pay for the upgrade.

I have completely dismantled and destroyed the innards of drives for companies before now.
A friendly furnace owner is quite handy.
 
>>iirc the free version of kill disk only performs 1 pass.

So use dban which is free & does as many passes as you like :)

B.
 
I take it you have shares with dban? ;)
 
>>I take it you have shares with dban?

I work in IT security as part of my job...

Why pay for stuff when you can get it, legitimately, for free?

B.
 
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