Best way to wipe out a hard drive?

[The GECCO]

So, I have a laptop that I no longer use. I would like to basically wipe out all the data stored on it in a way that it can't be recovered easily - without wiping out the operating system and the already installed programs (word, excel, etc). I'm going to sell it or give it away and don't want the expense of reinstalling the basics.

So, "format c:\" is out.

I'm thinking just delete everything and then run the defrag a couple times? Is there a better way?

[oh10raven]

I've always used this product for tasks like this and it's free: CCLEANER (http://www.piriform.com/CCLEANER)

You can even do a pretty complex overwrite if you're worried about the data being recovered.

[WolFeYeZ]

DBAN if you don't want much of a trace left :D

Edit: DBAN has the option of using the wipe that the CIA uses, which is kinda cool. We used it when selling work computers with fairly sensitive data and it worked wonders.

[#1Townie]

12 gauge?

[mxer]

Why risk it for the few dollars you'll get out of it? Camp fire.

[Nick_Ninja]

DBAN

DBAN (http://www.dban.org/download)

[CBR-Cowboy]

best and safest thing would be to wipe everything and reinstall it. there might be a few tools out there that only delete what you want to perm, but you will have to google it :)

[salsashark]

Pull the hard drive, hook it up to another machine using a USB SATA/IDE connector, run a disk cleaner utility like KillDisk (http://www.killdisk.com/)...

[longrider]

DBAN would be my recommendation too, but for what you want to DBAN recommends this (http://www.blancco.com/us/products/selective-data-erasure/file-shredder-pc-edition/) Disclaimer: I have never used the product but it looks interesting

[rybo]

Glenn -

The little technology company I work for formats drives at least 3 X and then reinstalls the OS when they liquidate PC's. A single format leaves a lot of evidence that can be put back together into useable information.

I know not quite the answer you were looking for, but for a real "leave no trace" option it's probably the best.

Scott

[DorJammer]

Personally, I use a sledge hammer.

I'm quite serious, I pull the drive, then beat it with a sledge until it splits the case.

[Ghosty]

*subscribed for future useful reference*

[JonnyD]

DBAN is what we use as well before recycling PC's, formatting the drive a minimum of 3 times. I have also pulled drives and used "Disk Wipe V1.5". http://www.diskwipe.org/

Either way, If you want to absolutely make sure there's no trace... its inevitable that you'll have to reimage it after using a disk wiping utility.

[modette99]

I tend to take them apart and look at them...toss a platter here and there in the trash and no one is going to try and recover the information. Its fun to see how much they have changed over the years inside.

[rforsythe]

Glenn -

The little technology company I work for formats drives at least 3 X and then reinstalls the OS when they liquidate PC's. A single format leaves a lot of evidence that can be put back together into useable information.

I know not quite the answer you were looking for, but for a real "leave no trace" option it's probably the best.

Scott

Not good enough. You have to actually write the disk with random data, or cycles of all 1's and all 0's multiple times to wipe out the residual magnetism. Simple formatting doesn't accomplish this. It's possible they're doing this write cycle on the drive and just calling it "formatting" but the two mean different things. People have shown ability to recover data from a drive even after it's been wiped 3 times with effort (this requires serious kung fu) so current standards are even higher.

SSD's are a whole other ball game, there is no magnetic media like a spinning disk but they will still have a "memory" that can be recovered. SSD forensics are somewhat new, but pretty interesting stuff.


Personally, I use a sledge hammer.

I'm quite serious, I pull the drive, then beat it with a sledge until it splits the case.

Again not good enough. Splitting the case might make the drive unusable, but if the physical platters survive then it's absolutely possible to recover data from them. Again it takes kung fu but think of those platters as a physical manifestation of your data - if they live, so does it.

We wipe drives many times at work if we intend for them to be used again. In some cases this is not desired or possible, so they go to a rather large magnetic degauss machine which destroys the data and any hope of using the drive again. (Vendors hate that with warranty returns.)

If you're going to resort to outright physical destruction of the drive, you need to demolish that fucker. I mean, drill holes through it, burn it, crush the platters, whatever. I read once that burned but intact platters were *still* recoverable to some extent by someone with money and skill. Crazy what someone with motivation can do. Shredders can be effective as well. ;)

Glenn, in your case I'd use one of the drive wiping tools available and just reinstall the OS when you're done. While it's possible to wipe specific areas of a drive where a file lives, who knows what got stored in a cache file or temp backup file somewhere, and even if that was subsequently deleted your wipe utility won't find it on a selective wipe, meaning the data still lives. IMNSHO either wipe the whole drive or not at all.

[grim]

Not good enough. You have to actually write the disk with random data, or cycles of all 1's and all 0's multiple times to wipe out the residual magnetism. Simple formatting doesn't accomplish this. It's possible they're doing this write cycle on the drive and just calling it "formatting" but the two mean different things. People have shown ability to recover data from a drive even after it's been wiped 3 times with effort (this requires serious kung fu) so current standards are even higher.

SSD's are a whole other ball game, there is no magnetic media like a spinning disk but they will still have a "memory" that can be recovered. SSD forensics are somewhat new, but pretty interesting stuff.



Again not good enough. Splitting the case might make the drive unusable, but if the physical platters survive then it's absolutely possible to recover data from them. Again it takes kung fu but think of those platters as a physical manifestation of your data - if they live, so does it.

We wipe drives many times at work if we intend for them to be used again. In some cases this is not desired or possible, so they go to a rather large magnetic degauss machine which destroys the data and any hope of using the drive again. (Vendors hate that with warranty returns.)

If you're going to resort to outright physical destruction of the drive, you need to demolish that fucker. I mean, drill holes through it, burn it, crush the platters, whatever. I read once that burned but intact platters were *still* recoverable to some extent by someone with money and skill. Crazy what someone with motivation can do. Shredders can be effective as well. ;)

Glenn, in your case I'd use one of the drive wiping tools available and just reinstall the OS when you're done. While it's possible to wipe specific areas of a drive where a file lives, who knows what got stored in a cache file or temp backup file somewhere, and even if that was subsequently deleted your wipe utility won't find it on a selective wipe, meaning the data still lives. IMNSHO either wipe the whole drive or not at all.

If you want to burn it, bring it on down to my shop 3,000 degrees will make it so there is literally nothing left but powder, id love to see someone recover that!!!!!!!!!!

[modette99]

Not good enough. You have to actually write the disk with random data, or cycles of all 1's and all 0's multiple times to wipe out the residual magnetism. Simple formatting doesn't accomplish this. It's possible they're doing this write cycle on the drive and just calling it "formatting" but the two mean different things. People have shown ability to recover data from a drive even after it's been wiped 3 times with effort (this requires serious kung fu) so current standards are even higher.

SSD's are a whole other ball game, there is no magnetic media like a spinning disk but they will still have a "memory" that can be recovered. SSD forensics are somewhat new, but pretty interesting stuff.



Again not good enough. Splitting the case might make the drive unusable, but if the physical platters survive then it's absolutely possible to recover data from them. Again it takes kung fu but think of those platters as a physical manifestation of your data - if they live, so does it.

We wipe drives many times at work if we intend for them to be used again. In some cases this is not desired or possible, so they go to a rather large magnetic degauss machine which destroys the data and any hope of using the drive again. (Vendors hate that with warranty returns.)

If you're going to resort to outright physical destruction of the drive, you need to demolish that fucker. I mean, drill holes through it, burn it, crush the platters, whatever. I read once that burned but intact platters were *still* recoverable to some extent by someone with money and skill. Crazy what someone with motivation can do. Shredders can be effective as well. ;)

Glenn, in your case I'd use one of the drive wiping tools available and just reinstall the OS when you're done. While it's possible to wipe specific areas of a drive where a file lives, who knows what got stored in a cache file or temp backup file somewhere, and even if that was subsequently deleted your wipe utility won't find it on a selective wipe, meaning the data still lives. IMNSHO either wipe the whole drive or not at all.

Everything you said is spot on, I just don't think many people finding a platter will mess with it at the dump. Assuming the platter stays in a state that is even repairable after being beat to hell. This takes a lot of time for a very unknown recovery. Could just be SHIT on that drive nothing of value.

[Owen_R6]

i also vote for DBAN...

Used to use that all the time when i was an IT Analyst and still use it when i'm fixing stuff or starting over

[TurboGizzmo]

If you want to sell it:

DBAN and reinstall

If you were storing top secret info and you want to be realistic about security.

DBAN it, then smash or open it, remove the platters and shatter them....keep the cool magnets but dont let kids play with them. Throw away the broken pieces in different trash cycles.

beyond that blah blah freezing your ram recovery blah blah blah bit locker drive recovery...blah blah blah....recovery is always possible, just depends on time and money.

[rforsythe]

Everything you said is spot on, I just don't think many people finding a platter will mess with it at the dump. Assuming the platter stays in a state that is even repairable after being beat to hell. This takes a lot of time for a very unknown recovery. Could just be SHIT on that drive nothing of value.

I agree, and in Glenn's case he isn't a CIA operative working out of a racetrack (that I know of) or storing multi-million-dollar corporate secrets, so an off the shelf tool and a resinstall is sufficient. If someone is doing deep-dive physical recovery, it's a targeted attack against a drive they are damn sure came from a source of value. I was just pointing out some of the more common fallacies in data destruction. :)

[TFOGGuys]

http://youtu.be/yd_O7-rqcHc

then reinstall the OS, should be good to go.

[CaptGoodvibes]

Release the Kraken!

http://funny-pictures-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/RELEASE-THE-KRAKEN.jpg

[Ricky]

Place the hard drive inside an MRI machine, and activate, lol!

[puckstr]

Oh this will do it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pZD99lTfQk

[HR636]

I like 3 inch magnum double ought buck.

[buddahson]

I agree with what everyone else said if you are looking for very secure data destruction. That said, one option that has not been mentioned is to delete everything you don't want on the drive and then overwrite all empty space with random files. Basically download a bunch of porn, music or whatever. Fill the drive entirely and then delete everything you just put on. Then do it again. Running a couple defrags while 85% or so of the drive if full could help as well. I like using actual files for this as opposed to random data because if someone is trying to recover data it makes the file listing more difficult to decipher.

This should overwrite most of the old data and make it mostly unrecoverable. Someone very skilled in recovery or forensics might be able to pull some data but it would take a ton of work and 99.9% of it would likely be corrupt or fragments of files at best.

Please note that this assumes you did not miss anything when deleting old files and this includes profile and temp directories. Also, this is not something I would ever recommend to a client but is honestly sufficient for personal use.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

Run it thru an MRI machine? :)

Working for the Defense, they used a random 0's and 1's program to fill the disk to capacity, and then format 3x if I remember.

[CaptGoodvibes]

Run it thru an MRI machine? :)

Working for the Defense, they used a random 0's and 1's program to fill the disk to capacity, and then format 3x if I remember.

Should be 7x...

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

Should be 7x...
Could well be. It's been a long time. I know they were totally anal about it, and rightfully so. The security at the nuclear site in IF was a LOT tighter than when I worked on base for the Navy, but then I didn't do much secret work there, thankfully. I'd imaging the secret and super-secret labs were far more buttoned down.