Government standards with zeroing out HDD?

[shdwsclan]

Drives are pretty well shielded against magnets........you could always put the hard drive in a gausser.

Thanks to the patriot act.....you wont have enough time to run a low level format because they can enter and exit your home freely without showing you a warrant.......best to get a gausser\degauser to have it discharge an emp when the computer case is opened or wrong password opened if your into that kind of cloak and dagger stuff.....for me...i really have nothing to hide......

 

[RicoDirenzo]

OMG.......this is hysterical. Dude, Low Level formats are destructive...he wants to use the drive again. If you want the drive set back to factory standards....boot wiTH a 98se floppy, delete the non dos partition using fdisK and then add a new non dos partition. However, the data that was on the drive is still there!!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT RUN A LOW LEVEL DESTRUCTIVE FORMAT ON THAT DRIVE UNLESS YOU DON'T WANT IT ANYMORE AND DEFORE YOU THROW IT IN THE DUMPSTER. I'm not sure you can even do that at home anymore! Important drive information (servo, sector layout, and defect management, etc.) is stored in the low-level format at the factory. This information is designed to last the life of the drive and therefore it is not possible to low level the drive outside the factory. Although some drive manufactures and BIOS provided so-called "low level format utilities", they actually perform a write-read verify of the driveÂ’s user data sectors, and do not actually perform a low-level format. In the event of a corrupted master boot record or boot block virus, use FDISK /MBR command to restore the master boot record. If you need to low level format your hard drive then check the drive manufacturer and download such an utility from its website. Every drive manufacturer provides just such a utility. NOTE: YOU.....YES YOU, CAN'T DO A DESTRUCTIVE LOW LEVEL FORMAT AT HOME WIHTOUT DAMAGING THAT DRIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Harkonan]

wow paranoia city here.
if you just doing it for a re install of windows to do it clean just format the drive in the recovery console. peasy and clean as a whistle as far as windows are concerned. the MI-5 may be a different matter but to be honest, unless your running some sort of gun running buisness using contacts in mexico, Iran and a small fast black boat.. it doesnt matter.

 

[RicoDirenzo]

LOL!!! Exactly! Sheesh, people suggesting he do a Low Level Format? OMG! Harkonan is correct. Just do a repair first reformat and reinstall if that fails. You can back up your critical data by installing that drive as a slave or using Norton Ghost and Ghosting the drive to a slave or secnd SATA drive. Just reformat..no one wants to see your old data anyway!

 

[Beyeohazard]

The only way to ensure that the contents of a hard drive are destroyed permanently is to destroy the hard drive itself. Computer storage devices are made to preserve data, not destroy it. Additionally, the techniques used to access storage devices are way more advanced than the counter-measures available to subvert them.
I work in law enforcement, and I can assure you, if you have illegal data on your hard drive, law enforcement is very capable and ready to retreive it. All that they need is a reason to come and get it. If you're exchanging this data with others or selling it or whatever the case may be, I would advise you to cease the activity and destroy the hard drive. The chances that anyone is going to come and get it however, is very unlikely.
Unless of course you log onto, say, an online forum, ask suspisious questions and a law enforcement officer should inadvertantly see it. Then suppose that officer were computer savvy, noted your IP address and forwarded an email to local computer crimes investigators, along with a copy of your message. I'd say the chances of you getting some unwanted attention were very good, if not certain.
Careful what you ask, friend. Never know who might be listening...

 

[sPlAtOiD]

Ha Ha Thats toooo much...Im sure you freaked him out with that one....

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

If your like that guy in the movie "The Core" and you have ton of illegal crap on a drive. To make sure the data on a HD is never recovered by even the FBI you would need to reformat it Many times, Low level format it several times more. then Take a large sledge hammer and wack the drive into tiny little bits, then Spread the drive in its entirety over serval miles from an airplane some miles above the surface of the planet going some really fast speed.


Then and only then, can you consider that data "Lost".

Inch dia drill is 100% effective.

 

[shdwsclan]

It really hard to use quotes here.........
I stated 2 types of low level formats....a low level and a "low level"

I'm not sure what else to call this "low level" type of format because it only erases the memory that was used....an ntfs partition......not the the drive hardware data........i guess you could call it a lower level format....
Such a format basically preps a drive for sale.........
...all partitions are completely destroyed and the drive is clean.....

The low level format that is industry used erases everthing destroying a drive.

The "low level" format that is marketed for sale just preps a hard drive for re-sale....

Now as for the de-gausser..................
I have a cheap one which I use to gauss dv tapes but it is nowhere near powerful enough to gauss a hard drive........

Here is a HD de-gausser:
http://www.datadev.com/v94.html

Drives that are heavily damaged and cannot be formatted must be guassed as the state department states.
It is possible to get a heavily damaged drive working again with home made interfaces made from old drives....but I won't get into the details of that because ole' G.W. may turn my house into a yard sale while im sleeping with that patriot act out and about....

 

[RockyZ]

speaking of software...
http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Not sure if someone already mentioned this, I didn't have time to read through all of this.

 

[Disillusion]

Wow, you guys have taken this post way wrong. I am kind of asking two questions here. I wanted to know why the gov't puts standards on these things, but now I know. I am also wanting to know how I can go about zeroing out the HDD. I don't have anything I'm trying to hide, I just know that reformatting doesn't get rid of some things that cause errors or problems.

Read this.
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/ata_llfmt_what.html

I also read somewhere that zeroing a HDD opens up some bad sectors. These are the reasons why I want to zero fill this old HDD. It's almost like starting with a "fresh new" HDD.

Where can I get a free program that allows me to do this?