Government standards with zeroing out HDD?

[Disillusion]

Well I used the Boot and Nuke program. It worked great. HDD is much faster now and quieter as well! I can't believe it actually quieted the HDD, but it sounds much smoother now when it's accessing data and isn't nearly as loud. I think that's just what this old machine needed. Thanks for the help.

 

[TheMajor]

Use a program like Killdisk to write random data to the disk.

As with regular deletion, data from a format is not destroyed until overwritten and may be recoverable unless securely deleted ("shredded"). Low-level formatting, below, is frequently confused with "zero-writing" in which every bit of data on the disk is systematically overwritten with zeros returning the drive to a "factory-fresh" state.

A formatting of a disk involves two quite different processes known as "low-level formatting" and "high-level formatting." The former deals with formatting of disk surfaces required by the disk controller hardware; the latter with software-specific information written by a specific operating system.

 

[EricB]

the government stardard use to be wiping the drive 7 different ways (full formats) would make data unrecoverable. however that isn't true anymore. if you are a terrorist or into kiddie porn, they will find it

 

[Dngrsone]

More precisely, it was write all 0's, then all 1's... that would be first pass. Repeat at least seven times.

Of course, as has been said repeatedly, there are ways to retrieve the data, at least partially, but there's some significant expense in doing so.

I like Spinrite, it's recovered drives and data for me that nothing else would touch.

 

[EricB]

More precisely, it was write all 0's, then all 1's... that would be first pass. Repeat at least seven times.

Of course, as has been said repeatedly, there are ways to retrieve the data, at least partially, but there's some significant expense in doing so.

I like Spinrite, it's recovered drives and data for me that nothing else would touch.

no. the government standard was 7 different ways

 

[EricB]

no. the government standard was 7 different ways

it easy to recover a drive written the same way 7 times. the isn't any sense in doing this in this manner, you can just do it once. writing it 7 different ways purges the data even more. Partition magic (secure erase feature) and Evidence eliminator rewrite the data 10 different way so they exceeded the government standard.

I was drunk last night, coming in. so I couldn't explain it better.

 

[patrickc284]

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...

I thought this topic was about how to erase a drive?

 

[EricB]

here is the topic name

Government standards with zeroing out HDD