Destroying Data Before Sending Drive Back for Warrenty

[techiemon]

Is there anyway in making sure the data is completely deleted and cannot be restored/recovered from a HDD? I have a drive I need to send back for warrenty as it is failing, but I do not want them trying to recover any data off the drive once I send it back to them. Most western countries are pretty honest about this, but where I live I wouldn't put it past them to give it a shot. If I could I would complete a crash of the disk prior to sending it back.

I have read that reformating the drive about 5-6 times can help insure that, but is that a quick format or a slow reformat?

Thanks

[Sephis]

The ultimate boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/) has programs on it that will zero hard drives. Scroll down to "Hard Disk Wiping Tools", any of those should do the trick.

[col_sanders]

Boon n Nuke
Has a few wipe methods, some more through than just writing zeros since that can sometimes be recoverable.
These more thorough methods can be a bit slow though since it writes crap on all the sectors in a few passes between formats

http://www.dban.org/

Lightweight and easy to use

Also if your into security of your files (which I think you may be ;) ) check this out too for disk encryption when you get your drive going again.
Diskcryptor:
http://diskcryptor.net/wiki/Main_Page/en

[techiemon]

Sephis and col_sanders, thank you much for your answers, these are useful tools, very much apprecaited, I will look into them.

[Trottel]

Putting metal in the microwave is not a big deal. Lots of microwavable foods come in metal pie pans. Have you ever heard of anyone causing a fire, damage, or any other disturbance due to putting metal in the microwave? It is an old wives' tale.

Also, simply formatting the drive in vista or 7 (not quick, but full) will zero out the drive.

[bing]

+1 with Trottel's suggestion, a simply single pass full format is enough, unless you're an Al-Qaeda operative. :D








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[Albaholic]

Boon n Nuke
Has a few wipe methods, some more through than just writing zeros since that can sometimes be recoverable.
These more thorough methods can be a bit slow though since it writes crap on all the sectors in a few passes between formats

http://www.dban.org/

Lightweight and easy to use

Also if your into security of your files (which I think you may be ;) ) check this out too for disk encryption when you get your drive going again.
Diskcryptor:
http://diskcryptor.net/wiki/Main_Page/en

+1 for dban

Or if its a secondary drive on a windows box

Eraser

http://eraser.heidi.ie/ (http://eraser.heidi.ie/)

[techiemon]

Metal should not be put in the microwave, even metal pie pans. And yes, I have seen it happen, someone did it at my universities long ago and the microwave exploded. I have actually heard about this alot, and if you do it you will see sparks flying around, it may not happen immediately, but it will happen. Just overall guys come on, a hdd in a microwave? hmmmm

However... I figured a simple reformatting in Win 7 would be fine, but what if I do like 3-4 passes, I would assume that would make it more difficult to retrieve.

[Albaholic]

I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting to put in a microwave. I wouldn't be surprised if a professional data recovery service would still be able to recover data if that's all that was done to the drive.

[techiemon]

Well yeah, they may be able to, but I am not much worried about this. I pretty much want to just keep honest people honest, and I want to just delete everything and make sure they cannot easily just go in and recover it.

[col_sanders]

anyway, enough with microwaves and back on topic
Some of the dban wipe methods can take a week to perform but will pretty much guarantee that nothing can be recovered

[techiemon]

A week eh? Is that running the drive 24/7 then? And I suppose it is writting something over the top right? How much system resources will that take up?

[ratbuddy]

If it's a modern drive, just use the built in secure erase command. Programs which ovewrite the drive multiple times are outdated and less secure. See http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=129 for more.

[Albaholic]

If it's a modern drive, just use the built in secure erase command. Programs which ovewrite the drive multiple times are outdated and less secure. See http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=129 for more.


Cool, didn't know that. Thanks for the tip.

[Sephis]

If it's a modern drive, just use the built in secure erase command. Programs which ovewrite the drive multiple times are outdated and less secure. See http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=129 for more.

Yup, that's what the HDDErase program on the boot cd I linked to above uses.:bday:

[fundip]

Sephis and col_sanders, thank you much for your answers, these are useful tools, very much apprecaited, I will look into them.



fundip, I think your answer is less than helpful, and I almost take your response as spam. Putting metal in the microwave is a no no for starters....

its no joke, you said the drive has failed and you are returning it. the sparks bouncing off the platters would do the job. 10 seconds in the microwave is the simplest way to destroy all data. maybe 5 seconds if you want to be conservative. at any rate it will render the drive completely unuseable.

much easier than using software if you have no more use for the hdd. could be useful if the irs is banging on your door.

[techiemon]

I am not going to even comment on that fundip... thanks anyway...

Thanks to the rest of you for your suggestions, very helpful.

[Jorlain]

There's companies around that can recover data from platters that have been split into pieces, bashed around, ground into gravel, and then given to them.

I don't think a microwave would be much of a road block.

[Bobnova]

If you don't want to warranty it, melt the platters, can't recover anything from a lump of slag.

If you do want to warranty it, use a bootable ubuntu disk and the shred command.

[techiemon]

Thanks Jorlin.

Well, I plan to get it warrantied. So unfortunately I cannot melt it down.

I will look into all the things you guys mentioned above using software and other methods to remove the data. Thanks again.

[moonpeach]

Hi Techiemon

Companys should not really be getting the data from your harddrive anyway, if they do then im sure they would be breaking certion privacy legislations and laws. A easy way to delete the data is just to delete the partition. If you have a windows disk or linux or any OS disk just pop that into your CD drive , boot up via CD and then tell it to delete the partition on the HD.

[techiemon]

Yep you are right. But nowadays you cannot be too careful. Because we do not know what they do with these drives once we send them back. Someone could walk out with one, you know...

[moonpeach]

Yep you are right. But nowadays you cannot be too careful. Because we do not know what they do with these drives once we send them back. Someone could walk out with one, you know...

Very true. Never know what some people would go to just to get your details etc. Like i said just format/delete partition on the HD

[Trottel]

Metal should not be put in the microwave, even metal pie pans. And yes, I have seen it happen, someone did it at my universities long ago and the microwave exploded. I have actually heard about this alot, and if you do it you will see sparks flying around, it may not happen immediately, but it will happen. Just overall guys come on, a hdd in a microwave? hmmmm

Microwave exploded? That is impossible. Sparks are normal and not harmful. Since the radiation doesn't hit the metal perfectly evenly, the flux generates uneven charges in the metal, resulting in current and sometimes possibly sparks within the piece of the metal.

However... I figured a simple reformatting in Win 7 would be fine, but what if I do like 3-4 passes, I would assume that would make it more difficult to retrieve.

Once is enough, not that the manufacturer is really going to try getting your data.

Very true. Never know what some people would go to just to get your details etc. Like i said just format/delete partition on the HD

Deleting the partition doesn't work because it leaves the data intact and easily recoverable through software. To make it not worth the time, the data needs to be written over. A simple full format under vista or 7 will do the job.

[Encore2097]

+20 for dban....
if it's good enough for the DoE to secure nuclear information... its probably good enough for you

[moonpeach]

Deleting the partition doesn't work because it leaves the data intact and easily recoverable through software. To make it not worth the time, the data needs to be written over. A simple full format under vista or 7 will do the job.
Then how do you reinstall an OS then? by what your saying it just keeps overwriting, and im sure i would know that by now with the times i've reinstalled

[TheNewbie]

Agreed dban is what we use at the VA when returning HDD's. No pun. but a certain 4 letter company that we get pc's/parts from that sends many a HDD to us with old user data still fully intact. The most formats I have heard of any1 retrieving HDD data from is 7 passes I am not totally for sure but I believe dban does this in a sort of way that it marks every other pass all 1's then all 0's not just clearing the data from the last use but all data .


P.S. moonpeach removing the partition is like going to the library and throwing the dewey decimal system out the window, the books still remain but it has no log as to where the information is kept. Partitioning alots the spaces for the data to go.

[Trottel]

Then how do you reinstall an OS then? by what your saying it just keeps overwriting, and im sure i would know that by now with the times i've reinstalled

Deleting the partition doesn't delete any data though. All the ones and zeros are still left intact. The only thing it does is show that there is nothing on the disk, but the data is still very easily recoverable using software you quickly find and download.

[techiemon]

I'm curious does anyone know what the HDD manufactueres do with the drives once they get them for RMA? Do they just throw them out?

I think I am going to use http://eraser.heidi.ie/ because for Dban and others I have to disconnect all the other drives from my pc for a week, which means I can't use my computer during this time. I ahd considered to use the built in secure erase command but after reading the blog, it is also a pain in the neck as I am not sure about my cable settings and the last thing I want is a drive I didn't specify to be deleted, or again I need to unplug all the other drives in my pc and wait for the software to finish. I actually did consider to throw the thing in the microwave, but then I would want to attach it back to my computer to see what happens, and honestly I fear to do that as I have no idea what the result would be...

[RJARRRPCGP]

Try this:

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6707905&postcount=11

[techiemon]

That's pretty much the same as the one above, lots of steps invovled...

[techiemon]

Well, after trying to use eraser I became disappointed almost immediately, you can only choose one folder at a time, what a pain. It seems I am going to have to disconnect everything and make a boot disk and wait out a week without a computer in order to delete the harddrive I want to send back.. What a pain in the @%$