Stack of drives to wipe

SteveOBHave · 16 Apr 2010 at 09:39

Hi all

I've got a whole stack of drives to wipe but I've got a drive dock to do it with, I'm just not sure what software is good to use as I want to be able to run it from windows and point it at the drive without having to reboot each time.

Any ideas would be appreciated - I need something that does a serious low level format and 0/1 write.

Yakyb · 16 Apr 2010 at 09:46

right click /format /full format/ ok

or am i missing something?

somewhatdamaged · 16 Apr 2010 at 09:49

Yes, you are missing something. He wants a secure wipe, which windows will most certainly not do.

EsaT · 16 Apr 2010 at 09:53

Probably easiest would be opening case, disconnecting present HDDs (make sure you don't mix those) and connecting as many of these drives needing wipe as motherboard can take.
Then boot PC from this and it automatically wipes all HDDs it detects:
http://www.dban.org/
(so make damn sure to disconnect drives not needing wipe)

Frenzy · 16 Apr 2010 at 10:00

somewhatdamaged said:
Yes, you are missing something. He wants a secure wipe, which windows will most certainly not do.

I thought a Full Format was a low level format which meant it wrote 0 to all the bits on the hd making it a "secure" wipe ie no undelete software could get any data...

Apparently the full format runs a bad sector check at the same time as a quick format so it doesnt actually zero out all the data, this information was for xp though. Either way i guess im going to have to get some secure software too, just incase.

MarrokTook · 16 Apr 2010 at 11:16

I use diskwipe to wipe my drives, which can be run in windows. You can select how many passes it does, I normally do 2 or 3.
http://www.diskwipe.org

SteveOBHave · 16 Apr 2010 at 11:25

MarrokTook said:
I use diskwipe to wipe my drives, which can be run in windows. You can select how many passes it does, I normally do 2 or 3.
http://www.diskwipe.org

Ah - legend - nice work!

AbsenceJam · 16 Apr 2010 at 14:19

I learnt recently that from Vista onwards the full format does actually zero the drive, it previous used to run chkdsk. So you can use that or http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml or there are plenty of other apps around.

Remember all you need is a single pass and it's securely wiped.

SteveOBHave · 16 Apr 2010 at 14:30

AbsenceJam said:
I learnt recently that from Vista onwards the full format does actually zero the drive, it previous used to run chkdsk. So you can use that or http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml or there are plenty of other apps around.

Remember all you need is a single pass and it's securely wiped.

You'd be surprised with what computer forensics can do these days.

AbsenceJam · 16 Apr 2010 at 14:47

SteveOBHave said:
You'd be surprised with what computer forensics can do these days.

No. You cannot recover any data from a HDD once it has been overwritten. Computer forensics have not changed at all; there are theoretical approaches but they have no practical use and even less so with the increases in density.

CaptainCrash · 17 Apr 2010 at 00:22

SteveOBHave said:
You'd be surprised with what computer forensics can do these days.

Simon42 · 17 Apr 2010 at 08:56

The only problem with a secure multi-pass erase and even just a single pass full erase is the time to do it which large drives. For me this means the single pass secure erase is the only sensible option on a larger drive, and given the very higher densities these days I doubt the multi-pass erases are essential.