How do you completely wipe hdd without reinstalling windows?

I heard that the only way to be sure is to destroy the drive plates. Some data can still be recovered after a format (or several formats)
 
Would be worth doing just for the comedy value "please find you hard disc enclosed, the platters are in the other jiffy smashed to ****" ;)
 
Well point is he has said "wipe without reinstalling windows" (?) - kind of implies that he wants to keep windows just wipe his files..

Edit: or does he mean instead of using windows to format it?
 
jellybeard999 said:
Being reasonable, it would be sufficient for domestic use, but it's not impossible, otherwise it wouldn't be practice to wipe dozens of times.
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+1 on that.

And +1 on DBAN... excellent little bootable utility. :D

The Gutmann Wipe method that DBAN uses is the most thorough I believe, but will take the longest. It uses 35 passes (but needs only a few on 'newer' hard drives) of random data and random-order passes... It's a little thorough ;)
 
jellybeard999 said:
Being reasonable, it would be sufficient for domestic use, but it's not impossible, otherwise it wouldn't be practice to wipe dozens of times.
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I guess it depends on how you define "impossible", but Gutmann himself eventually conceded that the chances of recovering usable data from a modern HDD after a single-pass zero-fill (eg the Linux dd command mentioned above) were "close to zero".

There's certainly no documented evidence of it ever having been achieved, at least to my knowledge. "Impossible for all practical purposes" would certainly seem to cover it, so multiple overwrites with random data are really just a waste of time for the incurably paranoid. :)
 
jellybeard999 said:
Being reasonable, it would be sufficient for domestic use, but it's not impossible, otherwise it wouldn't be practice to wipe dozens of times.
Click to expand...

No, it's really quite impossible to recover anything.
Theoretically what you can do is examine platters using an electron microscope and possibly see some magnetic information left between the tracks. However you would never be able to recover any data. More to the point this was irrationally deemed a 'threat' on very old disks with larger platters and a very low platter density. It wasn't possible to recover anything from 5.25" platters that only stored MB's, now we have 3.5" platters with upright bits at 500GB.

So yeah, a zero fill (or any sort of complete overwrite random or not) is all you ever need and no person or organisation can recover a thing.
 
AbsenceJam said:
No, it's really quite impossible to recover anything.
Theoretically what you can do is examine platters using an electron microscope and possibly see some magnetic information left between the tracks. However you would never be able to recover any data. More to the point this was irrationally deemed a 'threat' on very old disks with larger platters and a very low platter density. It wasn't possible to recover anything from 5.25" platters that only stored MB's, now we have 3.5" platters with upright bits at 500GB.

So yeah, a zero fill (or any sort of complete overwrite random or not) is all you ever need and no person or organisation can recover a thing.
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you're wrong.
it's entirely possible to read the data back after a 0 fill.
 
Back to the original question, Ccleaner will wipe free space and will use the gutman method if configured under options. Probably the best bet without reinstalling windows.
 
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