Properly Wiping A Drive

Westyfield2 · 16 Aug 2006 at 16:05

I want to securely (write blanks etc.) to a drive but then still be able to refromat it and use as if it were brand new. (So not the smack it with a sledgehammer option). And it want to do this via a floppy @ bootup.

I've read of KillDisk & DBAN both of which are available free, but Killdisk also has a pay version (which I'm not interested in).

I've assumed that these two are the best of the free ones, so which one is best?

TY

Westyfield2 · 16 Aug 2006 at 16:33

Just done some more reading and DBAN seems the better of the two.
Anyone know what it's like with SATA drives?

Westyfield2 · 16 Aug 2006 at 17:21

Moreless decieded on DBAN, but which method should be used:

What's the most secure?
I'm guessing that it's DoD 5220.22-M

Westyfield2 · 16 Aug 2006 at 17:28

Just read that the Gutmann Wipe does it 35 times so is that more secure?

EDIT But now just seen this so DoD 5220-22.M should suffice...

Westyfield2 · 16 Aug 2006 at 21:00

Got a DoD 5220-22.M going; How long is it gona take on my 300gb maxtor?
It's been going 3hrs and says 20% - but then says 15hrs to go (or is it 15hrs total?)

cyborg · 17 Aug 2006 at 01:04

Woah you basically have a whole thread to yourself here, at least you found everything out though. Hopefully thats done by now!

maranello168 · 17 Aug 2006 at 02:06

lol. rather strange this thread

deadeyedic30 · 18 Aug 2006 at 07:24

If you want an proper wipe then it's going to take a while.Leave it over night.

Westyfield2 · 18 Aug 2006 at 14:55

deadeyedic30 said:
If you want an proper wipe then it's going to take a while.Leave it over night.

Did just that, DoD 5220-22.M through DBAN took 15hrs on a 300gb Maxtor

but only 3hrs on a 74gb WD raptor.

nrh1703 · 18 Aug 2006 at 16:42

I recently did a 5220-22.M on my 160Gb Samsung P80 and it took around 8-9hrs.

I used dban from the ultimate boot cd available at http://www.ultimatebootcd.com It has lots of HD manufacturers diagnostic utils and a selection of drive wiping apps inc dban and killdisk. One of the most useful utils I've come across.

Euphoria · 18 Aug 2006 at 19:45

is this basically a low level format which replaces all the sectors with 1 or 0 (i cant remember) so no data can be recovered?

Daytrader · 19 Aug 2006 at 22:26

i used Peter Gutmann's algorithm last time i had to wipe a drive. A whopping 35 passes, with 27 random-order passes using specific patterns combined with eight passes using random patterns, took me about 9 hours on 40 gig hd

Disk Wiper by paragron is good software.