Wiping hard drive

Scotteh

Scotteh

Scotteh

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14 Sep 2011
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What's the software to do this?

Currently using my backup software (Acronis true image) which has a disk cleansing facility with a few including DoD/Naval and so on

Assuming this should be sufficient or would alternative software be recommended?
 
There's software called DBAN Boot n Nuke. You burn it to disk and boot from it. From there you can choose the method you wish and how many passes, whether you want to fill it with zeros etc etc.
Or just type 'autonuke' at the prompt and it does the default setting.

If the drive is end of life, do the above and then, if necessary, stick a drill through it to be sure.

http://www.dban.org/
 
There are tons of programs, if Acronis wil do it then use that. All you need to do is a single pass of zero's or anything really. Ignore anyone who thinks that isn't enough. Even theoretically you couldn't recover anything with physical methods after that.

If it's a hybrid drive or SSD you'll need to use the SecureErase command which PartedMagic and others have.
 
Hard drive zero-pass will do as it says on the tin - fill all sectors with zero (0 or 1 are the choices for magnetic data storage on these disks).

However multi-passes can zero out, but also place erroneous data on the drive; in the unlikely event of you having files made up of only zeroes, a zero-sector pass could in theory leave data there, whilst a multi-pass would randomly scatter 0 and 1 across the disk, making any data artefacts incomplete and therefore unreadable.

Usually a few claw hammer hits will destroy a disk to anyone but the most advanced electronic forensic recovery lab - usually costing £1000's to restore/recover; even then, they are only fragments.

If you were feeling frivolous, just get a Hex Editor and you can zero/one every sector you wished, by hand! (hardcore geek!). Or just remove the file signatures...
 
f00f1ght0r said:
Hard drive zero-pass will do as it says on the tin - fill all sectors with zero (0 or 1 are the choices for magnetic data storage on these disks).

However multi-passes can zero out, but also place erroneous data on the drive; in the unlikely event of you having files made up of only zeroes, a zero-sector pass could in theory leave data there, whilst a multi-pass would randomly scatter 0 and 1 across the disk, making any data artefacts incomplete and therefore unreadable.

Usually a few claw hammer hits will destroy a disk to anyone but the most advanced electronic forensic recovery lab - usually costing £1000's to restore/recover; even then, they are only fragments.

If you were feeling frivolous, just get a Hex Editor and you can zero/one every sector you wished, by hand! (hardcore geek!). Or just remove the file signatures...
Click to expand...

Your post is full of rubbish.

Writing 1's or 0's to a drive != the drive storing 1's and 0's. You're just filling it with contiguous data of one kind. You could use the letter a which would correspond to a different value. A 'zero fill' is 0x00 or 0xFF usually.

If you overwrite a drive with x it only contains x. Files made up of only 0's? Umm...

There is no recovery possible for an overwritten drive, and there is no (honest) service on offer to recover a drive you have smashed with a hammer. £1000's? You'd have to ask the NSA and that's only if the platters are very much intact and the HDD belonged to Hakimullah Mehsud, and hadn't been overwritten.

I also wouldn't advise only removing file signatures, although I don't think you know what this actually means. File signatures are a few bytes identifying the filetype, so you could remove these from every file and all the data would still be there and accessible to an attacker.
 
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I think you need to seriously brush up on your CHS as you have overlooked that off-track reads can recover standard 0 or 1 fill passes. The best bet is always, without fail, to do at least 2 passes of random fills for added security.

No conventional magnetic hard-drive totally erases the magnetised area with 100% accuracy, and it is very possible to recover polarity by slightly re-aligning the heads. Once again, specialised forensic laboratories can achieve this in most cases.

Zero-filled drives are an excellent application of steganography using the correct alignment reads as they can still hold data, but not within the zero track. Your typical Forensic High Tech Crime Unit will not be able to perform this before you ask, but there are some highly skilled engineers out there who can, and have done so.
 
f00f1ght0r said:
I think you need to seriously brush up on your CHS as you have overlooked that off-track reads can recover standard 0 or 1 fill passes. The best bet is always, without fail, to do at least 2 passes of random fills for added security.

No conventional magnetic hard-drive totally erases the magnetised area with 100% accuracy, and it is very possible to recover polarity by slightly re-aligning the heads. Once again, specialised forensic laboratories can achieve this in most cases.

Zero-filled drives are an excellent application of steganography using the correct alignment reads as they can still hold data, but not within the zero track. Your typical Forensic High Tech Crime Unit will not be able to perform this before you ask, but there are some highly skilled engineers out there who can, and have done so.
Click to expand...

No, just no. Even the theorists accept this, and these theories emerged when drives were hundreds of thousands of times less dense.

Stenography? Zero track? Err, lol.
 
f00f1ght0r said:
No conventional magnetic hard-drive totally erases the magnetised area with 100% accuracy, and it is very possible to recover polarity by slightly re-aligning the heads. Once again, specialised forensic laboratories can achieve this in most cases.

Zero-filled drives are an excellent application of steganography using the correct alignment reads as they can still hold data, but not within the zero track. Your typical Forensic High Tech Crime Unit will not be able to perform this before you ask, but there are some highly skilled engineers out there who can, and have done so.
Click to expand...
WzHWhC2.jpg
 
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