Does this fully wipe a hard drive?

chris_uk333 · 20 Jan 2011 at 21:17

If i were to sell an old hard drive, i would need to clear it. Would putting the W7 disc in, and deleting the partition fully wipe the hard drive?

Thank you

UnworthyBean · 20 Jan 2011 at 21:22

The data would still be recoverable by someone who knows what theyre doing.

Use DBAN if you want to make sure eveythings gone.

Deleted member 77746 · 20 Jan 2011 at 21:36

UnworthyBean said:
The data would still be recoverable by someone who knows what theyre doing.

Use DBAN if you want to make sure eveythings gone.

Worthy.

milkinc13 · 22 Jan 2011 at 10:40

UnworthyBean said:
The data would still be recoverable by someone who knows what theyre doing.

Use DBAN if you want to make sure eveythings gone.

2nd
+ DBAN is free

bhavv · 22 Jan 2011 at 11:28

Just reformat the drive?

PhillyDee · 22 Jan 2011 at 11:30

Still will be recoverable.

DBan is also available on the Ultimate Boot CD. This way you can just run the CD at your PC startup and let it do its thing. REMOVE ALL OTHER HARD DRIVES FIRST!

Max3 · 22 Jan 2011 at 15:21

Isn't 1 pass enough these days? The format option in windows 7 is able to do the job.

http://www.anti-forensics.com/disk-wiping-one-pass-is-enough
http://www.anti-forensics.com/disk-wiping-one-pass-is-enough-part-2-this-time-with-screenshots
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2048133

jimmy321 · 22 Jan 2011 at 16:07

Good to know, got some HD's I need to bay.

Thanks for the Windows 7 info.

Tomsk · 22 Jan 2011 at 16:14

Use eraser if you still want to use your PC will wiping your HDs.

trebius · 23 Jan 2011 at 00:59

Alternatively if your hard drive supports it and you don't want to spend forever overwriting you can use HDDErase (http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml), which I believe is also available on the Ultimate Boot Disc.

liamcrane · 23 Jan 2011 at 11:32

i find that using diskpart in the command prompt selecting the disk you wish to wipe and using the command "clean all" should do the job just fine

mikeo · 23 Jan 2011 at 22:05

Parted Magic can also Secure Erase a hard drive (or an SSD come to that). And it's free and can be run from a bootable CD/DVD.

AceTK · 23 Jan 2011 at 22:09

You need to do a 50x delete and zero write to make sure data is not recoverable.

MikeHiow · 23 Jan 2011 at 22:40

AceTK said:
You need to do a 50x delete and zero write to make sure data is not recoverable.

This is incorrect.

mikeo · 23 Jan 2011 at 22:42

Though I suppose if you are really paranoid. Then the ultimate option is to hit the drive several times with a very heavy hammer. Or... if you have a log burning boiler like us, incinerate the sucker! Though I suppose this does preclude selling it on afterwards!

Or just use a Secure Erase utility as a number of folks have have already recommended (including me).

To quote an informative article:

So what’s the magic?
Something called Secure Erase, a set of commands embedded in most ATA drives built since 2001. If this is so wonderful, why haven’t you heard of it before? Because it’s been disabled by most motherboard BIOSes.

Secure Erase is a loaded gun aimed right at your data. And Murphy’s Law is still in force. But hey, if you’re smart enough to read Storage Bits, you’re smart enough to not play with Secure Erase until you need to.

How does Secure Erase work?
Secure Erase overwrites every single track on the hard drive. That includes the data on “bad blocks”, the data left at the end of partly overwritten blocks, directories, everything. There is no data recovery from Secure Erase.

Says who?
The National Security Agency, for one. And the National Institute for Standards and Testing (NIST), who give it a higher security rating than external block overwrite software that you’d have to buy. Update: There is an open source external block overwrite utility called Boot and Nuke that is free.

Secure Erase is approved for complying with the legal requirements noted above.

joeyjojo · 23 Jan 2011 at 22:57

chris_uk333 said:
If i were to sell an old hard drive, i would need to clear it. Would putting the W7 disc in, and deleting the partition fully wipe the hard drive?

Thank you

As said by others, grab ultimate boot cd (UBCD) from the website and burn it (slow speed to avoid errors). It's full of great tools for erasing a drive. Some are more secure than others. If the drive didn't have anything super-secret you can settle for something quick, otherwise 10 or 15 wipes with is good enough for the MoD

Removing other drives first is an excellent idea.