Erasing a drive, and making it impossible to recover?

Wayn0r · 6 Nov 2008 at 09:29

As title. i have a drive that i want to delete some stuff off, indefinitly, so that even powerful recovery software cant restore it.

What are the options other than smashing it with a hammer?

Cuchulain · 6 Nov 2008 at 09:36

Are you expecting a visit from the filth?

Wayn0r · 6 Nov 2008 at 10:00

not me no, its for a friends laptop. Ideally the drive should still work, but be unable to do any data recovery. She is rather paranoid :s

Cuchulain · 6 Nov 2008 at 10:12

Wayn0r said:
not me no, its for a friends laptop. Ideally the drive should still work, but be unable to do any data recovery. She is rather paranoid :s

Give it a low level format, something like http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2006.04.12-HDD-Low-Level-Format-Tool/ should help.

Wayn0r · 6 Nov 2008 at 10:15

thanks, i did say to her that a low level format should work but thought id check here.

thanks

knowlesy · 6 Nov 2008 at 10:17

hirens ......

edited: for saftey

bledd · 6 Nov 2008 at 11:14

^illegal

Wayn0r · 6 Nov 2008 at 11:18

bledd. said:
^illegal

what is?

JC · 6 Nov 2008 at 11:21

He means the hirens disc, although useful, isn't full of freeware apps...

bledd · 6 Nov 2008 at 11:38

that boot disc

GeoPat · 6 Nov 2008 at 12:09

http://www.east-tec.com/consumer/eraser/features.htm

Or maybe some freeware at http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads12.html

knowlesy · 6 Nov 2008 at 12:28

bledd. said:
^illegal

oops

linktoinsanity · 6 Nov 2008 at 13:17

I work in Digital Forensics and a low level format won't completely remove the data. Use either Encase Drive wipe or Eraser (free) to overwrite it. Then it shouldn't be forensicly recoverable.

MooMoo444 · 6 Nov 2008 at 13:30

Whenever I see one of thse threads, I always think of illegal activites

milkinc13 · 6 Nov 2008 at 20:49

DBAN nuke & distroy free & good

knowlesy · 6 Nov 2008 at 21:39

Mattf121 said:
I work in Digital Forensics and a low level format won't completely remove the data. Use either Encase Drive wipe or Eraser (free) to overwrite it. Then it shouldn't be forensicly recoverable.

your preference encase or ftk ?

company ?

MrJB · 6 Nov 2008 at 21:42

Use anything tha uses the Gutman overwriting method and you should be fine. Might take a while though.

knowlesy · 6 Nov 2008 at 21:54

j.bucka said:
Use anything tha uses the Gutman overwriting method and you should be fine. Might take a while though.

there are some people that would argue that the gutman dosent work or isnt as good, ccleaner as an amazing app as it is, isnt always the gospel, sadly

Edinho · 6 Nov 2008 at 22:09

Nuke it from orbit - Only way to be sure.

Strife212 · 6 Nov 2008 at 22:37

Writing the drive once with 0's makes it completely unrecoverable contrary to popular belief