how to delete hdd permanently??

[sammytomjohn]

hi guys gonna be sellin my lil pc soon so just wonderin!

what free program can i use to delete all the data permanently off the hdd!

dont want sum1 havin my personal info!

bank cards passwords etc..

 

[JN]

There's a boot cd called "Boot & Nuke" that's a free wiping utility. It does take aaaaages though as its done through DOS.

Or if you can boot from another hard disk (so that the one you want to blank isn't in use), the benchmarking too HDTune has a fast DoD wipe tool. I blanked 2x 500GB disks last night with 7x DoD wipe and it took about 5 hours (which is good)

 

[k4p84]

I wrote a 500gb WD disk using WD write to zero utility.

Took fecking ages.

I have used nuked a few too.

I think we had an article up here before that kinda hinted that even using software like this you can restore some data.

The fact of the matter is 99% of buyers really couldnt care less about what was on the HDD they just bought they just want to use it for themselves.

 

[nunzio]

Boot and Nuke is one of the best, but it does take time.

 

[mrapoc]

boot and nuke

we used it in woolworths when we were closing down

however all the till's floppy drives didnt work

so its not wiped.. lol

could also try killdisk

 

[JN]

I wrote a 500gb WD disk using WD write to zero utility.

Took fecking ages.

I have used nuked a few too.

I think we had an article up here before that kinda hinted that even using software like this you can restore some data.

The fact of the matter is 99% of buyers really couldnt care less about what was on the HDD they just bought they just want to use it for themselves.

Yeah tbh any form of wiping is ineffective unless you do it several times. Most DoD wipes are around 7x and I think there's one called Gutmann which is something silly like 20x random wipes.

I certainly wouldn't take the blasé approach when selling a hard disk online. There's a lot of people out there buying cheap hard disks / PC's JUST to try and salvage personal details.

 

[Rastalovich]

U can always mail the drives to Sony and have them restore them magnetically. SSD ftw

Last confusing method from an OS is to create 50 million partitions on the drive and format them, in some obscure filesystem is best.

It can theoretically be restored, but u'd need to know quite a bit about it's original structure to do it.

 

[JN]

U can always mail the drives to Sony and have them restore them magnetically. SSD ftw

Interestingly I've seen some tools that claim to restore from flash drives. Not sure if it's true and whether it might apply to SSD's, but judging by the amount of maintenance it takes to keep an SSD drive running at optimal speeds, it does suggest that there's something 'knocking about' on there after multiple writes.

 

[Rastalovich]

That's completely weird. Being as they rely on what's inherently memory chips.

You would think, in theory, u zero (or any byte) fill the drive with 1 pass and there's not a cat-in-hell's chance of getting anything.

EDIT: checking out that boot'n'nuke now. nice availablity for boot methods.

 

[sammytomjohn]

There's a boot cd called "Boot & Nuke" (which is good)

any linky jim virus free?

 

[Rastalovich]

http://www.dban.org/

(u don't have to sign up for the thing, the downloads aren't dependent on it)

It was a very easy google m8

Took 2 hours 15 mins to wipe an 80g drive >.< That's machine dependent tho.

But it's very good for booting up machines and just leaving them run, and it'd be very hard to improve on the time with any tool.

 

[sammytomjohn]

thanks again rasta!