Best secure erase software?

Mynight

Mynight

Mynight

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I've recently been given a old server from a large corp and stupidly the data still seems to be intact.

I plan on setting it up freshly so what would be the best way to ensure data is gone seeing as it will be public facing once setup.

Am I being paranoid and simply installing linux over the current windows software will be enough or is there a suitable utility to blitz the drives before I clean install?
 
CCleaners included Drive Wiper is as good as anything out there

This comes from my friend with a degree in digital forensics. He said even data deleted with a 32 pass wipe can have some data recovered

From his tests, the CCleaner one was remarkably good, even better than Acronis Drive Cleanser

Installing over the top may hide the previous data, but it would be recoverable by someone in the know

Take a few days and let the drive wipe a few times just to cover yourself (or them!)
 
somewhatdamaged said:
CCleaners included Drive Wiper is as good as anything out there

This comes from my friend with a degree in digital forensics. He said even data deleted with a 32 pass wipe can have some data recovered

From his tests, the CCleaner one was remarkably good, even better than Acronis Drive Cleanser

Installing over the top may hide the previous data, but it would be recoverable by someone in the know

Take a few days and let the drive wipe a few times just to cover yourself (or them!)
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OK then, let's see some citations, and you'll need to do better than "my friend's got a degree and he says so, so it must be true."

@mattyg: Dban have always used that disclaimer, it's basically a CYA against user error or some theoretical as-yet-uninvented super-duper recovery mechanism, and it doesn't mean it won't do the job when used correctly. Also, SSDs present a different problem - Dban's overwriting methods are ineffective due to the SSD's wear-levelling algorithms, but the ATA "secure erase" command (eg using Parted Magic or the drive's own utility) simply flushes all the cells in one hit, which makes any previously held data completely unrecoverable.
 
dban

Tbh, it's not your data, so I wouldn't worry too much.

I'd run dban in quick mode, then install whatever.
 
Well, without scanning his dissertation, he performed a drive wipe using various different software including Acronis Drive Cleaneser, CCLeaner Secure Erase and a number of others, and then attempted to recover the data from the drives using Encase (used by the FBI and CIA) and FTK. Whilst CCleaner wasn't the "best" it was better than some of the other offerings including Kroll Ontrack when it came to ensure files could not be recovered

Not that fussed if people believe or not, just saying that CCleaner is a perfectly adequate solution, and the likes of Acronis and Parted Magic are no better than some free options

Drive wipers all fundamentally do the same process remember

Easy to say "LOL" when you've probably never actually tried to recover data from the drive after your drive wipe. If so, how do you know it's the best?
 
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Well after 6 hours it's completed and I can get to installing centos once I work out why the installation display is at 45 degrees :D.
 
somewhatdamaged said:
Well, without scanning his dissertation, he performed a drive wipe using various different software including Acronis Drive Cleaneser, CCLeaner Secure Erase and a number of others, and then attempted to recover the data from the drives using Encase (used by the FBI and CIA) and FTK. Whilst CCleaner wasn't the "best" it was better than some of the other offerings including Kroll Ontrack when it came to ensure files could not be recovered
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"Better" in what sense? What exactly did your friend claim to have recovered after a drive wipe with the "other offerings" he tried?

Any halfway decent data recovery company will tell you that nothing is retrievable after even a one-pass zero fill, let alone a 32-pass wipe. If your friend reckons he recovered anything useful after using *any* of the secure erase utilities he tried, then the likelihood is either the software is defective/buggy or (far more likely) there's something wrong with his test methodology (he was doing it wrong).

somewhatdamaged said:
Not that fussed if people believe or not, just saying that CCleaner is a perfectly adequate solution, and the likes of Acronis and Parted Magic are no better than some free options
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It's not a question of "belief," if you come into a tech forum making controversial claims which fly in the face of established wisdom you need to be able to support those claims with evidence, rather than just throwing things out there.

somewhatdamaged said:
Drive wipers all fundamentally do the same process remember
Click to expand...
Exactly. So what did your friend conclude that these "other offerings" were doing differently, to make them less effective?
 
Interesting discussion had no idea ccleaner and dban did not work fully on ssds.

I have tried running recuva and other top data recovery programs after running drive wiper on ccleaner and found zero recovery results found on the ssd so figured it was good enough?
 
The SSDs were physically destroyed they were nearing end of life on the smart scan anyway so just swapped them out for spares.

By old I'm talking 2010 afaik.

I didn't expect to start a discussion on it :D. Rather interesting :).

Thanks again everyone!
 
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