Removing Important Doc's From Hard Drive

DodgeViper · Oct 25, 2006

Question on rewritting over hard drive to remove all important documents. I understand that all information is stored on the HD as “1” and “0”. I also understand that once data has been written to the drive that reformatting the drive does not whip the drive clean that someone can retrieve information from the drive.

Here’s My Question,

I was told by our IT staff that if I were to rewrite over the entire 80 gig drive with data of NO value, that any other data that was previous written to the drive will have been overwritten with new “1” and “0”. This meaning if the drive were to be returned for replacement under warranty that those with peeping eyes would see data of no value, Remember I am talking about rewritting over the entire drive not reformatting the drive.

Is this true?

Trap05 · Oct 25, 2006

Your drive manufacturer most likely has HD tools that will write 0's to the drive. Or there are several free utilities that do the same thing.

tuskenraider · Oct 25, 2006

This meaning if the drive were to be returned for replacement under warranty that those with peeping eyes would see data of no value, Remember I am talking about rewritting over the entire drive not reformatting the drive.

Is this true?

I've heard/read of cases where data could somehow still be retreived even after having been written over. This would be by professional labs that do this kind of work and I'm sure the government has some. I would consider writting 0's or overwriting a drive safe enough for an RMA to WD.

Trap05 · Oct 25, 2006

If you're really paranoid overwrite it with the utility you pick several times.

darkcow · Oct 25, 2006

partition magic is quite good at securely reformatting a disk

Vipersfate · Oct 25, 2006

I think he is talking about using the entire disk space and rewriting the files that were once there. Basically, using it entirely, so there would be no way to recover the original files or something to that extent?

Trap05 · Oct 25, 2006

Yes I thought we understood that and suggested ways complete the task at hand.

Precision · Oct 26, 2006

Am i still stuck in the 1980's? I thought once you format the data is GONE forever, bye bye, no more getting anything that was once on it. Not that I really care that much I don't have too much of anything but a few passwords i wouldn't want people getting their grubby hands on. Just curious

Xaotic · Oct 26, 2006

To securely delete the contents of a drive, you need to use a tool specifically designed for the purpose. Commercially available software can often extract information from 0 filled drives. More specilized equipment can recover data from drives subjected to more extreme measures. DoD Spec requires at least 7 passes including random algorythm passes. I use Darik's Boot and Nuke for less sensitive data. For executive level machines, I either shatter the platters or pull and shred them.

DBAN:
http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Trap05 · Oct 26, 2006

Well sure but you can't RMA a decimated drive which was the OP's goal after getting rid of his data

Xaotic · Oct 26, 2006

Trap05 said:
Well sure but you can't RMA a decimated drive which was the OP's goal after getting rid of his data

Well aware of that, but data security is cheaper than any low capacity IDE drive. It all depends on the need for security. In many cases, when unable to clear a failing drive, I've had to destroy them rather than RMA. It really hurts when you have to destroy 300GB SCSI drives.

JigPu · Oct 26, 2006

Xaotic said:
Commercially available software can often extract information from 0 filled drives.

I know software can recover info from formatted drives, and some can even recover (a little) data from drives that have been mostly corrupted. However, I've never heard of a purely software solution being able to read data (well, data other than 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 ...

) from a zeroed drive. At the very least you'd have to change the sensitivity of the read head, which I didn't think Seagate et.al. included a command for.

If you could provide links to any software which is capable of this kind of recovery, I'd be very interested in reading about it!

JigPu

Xaotic · Oct 26, 2006

I probably shouldn't have said often, but I have done it myself using R-studio on prerelease HDDs. This was early development and may have had updated FW later. Too much information is still NDA'd.

DodgeViper · Oct 26, 2006

So many replies and I really never got a yes or no. I am not talking about zeroing a drive but rewritting the entire drive with data of no value to me or anybody else. If the old data of importance were to be replaced say with video data from a camera watching my driveway on entire 80 gigs can someone still find files of importance on the drive after the drive was completely overwritten?

Trap05 · Oct 26, 2006

jcw122 · Oct 26, 2006

Unless you pretty much destory your drive physically, it's professionally recoverable. There's been TONS of threads on this for years.

Precision · Oct 26, 2006

Wow,call me stupid but, that is something I never knew you could do after a format

I knew that broken drives could have data recovered from it but never knew you could do that!

Xtreme Barton · Oct 26, 2006

i remember reading a while back that it would take 50 pases of a low level format to be "govenrment secure" ..

hafa · Oct 26, 2006

If you wish to overwrite specific files on the drive, Eraser has been well reviewed and is freeware...

Removing Important Doc's From Hard Drive

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