How to un-recover lost items on HDD

242 Views 8 Replies 7 Participants Last post by syngress, Aug 6, 2013

21cage12

Discussion Starter · Aug 5, 2013

Hi Lads,
Is there any way I can format my HDD so when I give it to someone they can't recover the lost items/ programms and confidential information?
Help

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lapengu

· #2 · Aug 5, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by 21cage12

Hi Lads,
Is there any way I can format my HDD so when I give it to someone they can't recover the lost items/ programms and confidential information?
Help

Three passes with this should be enough so no home user would be able to go back and find your stuff, although i have to ask.. Who are you giving an HDD to that would know how to find old Data?

http://eraser.heidi.ie/

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DuckieHo

· #3 · Aug 5, 2013

The format zero command should be good enough by writing to 0 to every sector. DBAN if you are paranoid which can does 0-1-0 writes.
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/free-data-destruction-software.htm

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21cage12

Discussion Starter · #4 · Aug 5, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by lapengu

Three passes with this should be enough so no home user would be able to go back and find your stuff, although i have to ask.. Who are you giving an HDD to that would know how to find old Data?

http://eraser.heidi.ie/

Making money out of it. Lol

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21cage12

Discussion Starter · #5 · Aug 5, 2013

I was thinking of putting password on them with a software, after that I will lock and hide the programms using the same software. After this I will then use a windows CD to format the HDD. So even if they recover the information it will be locked. Is this a good idea?

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trojan92

· #6 · Aug 5, 2013

Formatting the drive after password protecting it would erase everything on the drive, including the protection

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hawkeye071292

· #7 · Aug 5, 2013

My favorite way is to just drill press the hard drive about 3-5 times...

Macs actually do what they call a "government wipe" which is formatting and reinstalling the OS 7x before finishing. All completely automated (Wish windows would add that)

2x passes with dban should be more than enough. I usually dban 3 times (and about 5 drives) at a time at work. Just hit it and check it the next day.

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ghostrider85

· #8 · Aug 5, 2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by hawkeye071292

My favorite way is to just drill press the hard drive about 3-5 times...

Macs actually do what they call a "government wipe" which is formatting and reinstalling the OS 7x before finishing. All completely automated (Wish windows would add that)

2x passes with dban should be more than enough. I usually dban 3 times (and about 5 drives) at a time at work. Just hit it and check it the next day.

one pass of dban will write 0 - 1 - 0 to every sector, it's already overkill because writing 0 on every sector is enough to destroy all the data.
multiple passes of dban? how many 0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0 does it take to destroy the data?

i think it's as ridiculous as xda dev forumers who tells people to do 3x full wipe before installing a custom rom.

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syngress

· #9 · Aug 6, 2013

Try with TrueCrypt, encrypt data with deep erase, and format it angain on NTFS

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