Permanent Hard Disk Data Erase Tool
 

I'm looking for a tool that will vape the data on a hard drive so well that it will virtually have the same effect on the data as taking the drive out of the machine and burning it!

Suggestions please?

Thanks

WB

You need a hard disk degausser, you can get table top versions but I don't know how much they are.

find the biggest magnet you can!!!!!! lol (don't try that for real not sure what side effects there are)

Format it with all Zero's

The hard disk degauser sounds like what I'm looking for. Anyone know where I can get one of these?

I'm not keen on formting, even with zero's, as a determined geek can nearly always get back to the data you wanted destroyed in the first place.

Thanks for the help so far guys, keep them coming.

WB

Formatting isn't good enough, and one pass is worthless anyway. You can get software specifically for the job, but the serious people use a degausser. More serious people degauss the disks, then destroy them :)

I've heard that overwriting the disk with either all zeros, all ones or a random pattern of zeroes and ones doesn't really erase the data and that an expert can recover a surprising amount of data from a disk that has had this treatment.

To me this seems counter-intuitive, so could an expert please explain (in simplistic terms please) how when reading a byte which is now 11111111 they can tell that it used to be 01000101?

If the disk has been overwritten multiple times (which I suppose utility software can do) and a random bit pattern is used, does this make it more difficult to retreive previous data and would this be secure enough for most peoples' purposes?

That sounds serious. What have you been downloading then?

Must be porn ?

Free?

Look for a software package called "Boot and Nuke"

Linux based, and very very good.

Burr,

Cheers for the tip, will follow this up with the degausing suggestion.

John Catlin, I build PC's for friends and reuse drives to keep the costs down. I am pretty nervous of the nightmare scenario of a computer savvy friend retrieving data off a formatted drive that they ought not to see when I know some of these drives have confidential info on them prior to formatting.

There are too many tools around that do this already relatively easily (eg Norton), hence my concern and post

Hope that helps.

WB

From what i have read, most of the people who retrieve data from previously formatte/shredded/overwritten with crap hard disk, use disk controllers that allow them to control the movement of the head when its reading the hard disk. They can basically steer the disk head, to reach the data which you thought you had removed. Analogy, imagine a snow plough clearing a road, yeah the road it clear, but the the snow has been pushed to the sides.....the steerable disk head will read the 'snow' from the outer edges of the tracks....

wacky.banana - give drop me a pm or email me. I work in computer forensics. We do this kind of thing all day long (the data destruction as well as the data recovery).

i would be interested in the tool/techniques you use to recover/destroy data, could you help ?

Just purely out of interest

This util is good at destroying hard-disks apparantly : http://www.hackology.com/programs/hdkp/ginfo.shtml

If you are looking to reuse the disks look for a sofwtare tool such as Eraser - this allows you to overwrite the disk with multiple passes thereby rendering data recovery virtually impossible. If you want to read up on it search for cluster tips and data erasing in Google.

tiggers.

Here's the only thing I would use to safely destroy data on a HDD

http://www.stanleytools.com/catalog_...dpi_midres.jpg

We actually go one stage further at work, they are shredded :D

First, if you have a degausser strong enough to wipe a hard drive you'll likely wipe all your tapes, floppies and probably your neighbours' too ( the platters are too well shielded)!!

Second, you would erase the servo track and render the hard drive useless.

As you want to reuse the drives, I suggest http://www.r-wipe.com/. Have used their other products and quite happy with them. Reasonable price and do what they say they do. This utility has the ability to wipe up to 35 times which is supposedly the same level the military use.

Thanks. That makes sense to me.

Sorry guys, been away from the board so only just seen these responses. Once again my thanks for the interest.

Trashman, I take your point on degausers yet StevenCotton seems to be suggesting that this is a viable way forward; so which of you guys is right?

Burr, you have PM when I can find you.

I appreciate the help on this.

WB

Burr,

YHPM.

Thanks

googles this: http://www.datalinksales.com/degauss...degaussers.htm which explains what happens. Did find a good link the other week when the subject of wiping came up - it depends on whether or not you want to re-use the drives after wiping. Will try and find the other link as that was from work so may still have it.

If you read sc's replies, he suggested degaussing before you said you would be reusing the drives. He also said

WB,

Try this http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/. We use it at work when reallocating laptops to new users. It may provide the level of data destruction you're looking for.


Rich

Guys,

Thanks for the responses, some good leads to go on.

Cheers

WB

Here you go http://www.actionfront.com/ts_dataremoval.asp good site with good explanations of what is and isn't possible etc.