Wiping hard drives

[Topcat]

Whats a good utility out there for obliterating data on a hard disk (sata) these days? I haven't had the need to do this since the SCSI days, and back then, I'd do a low-level format on them from the controller BIOS, which always did the trick....but that's not an option today apparently.

The reason I ask, I'm cycling out a bunch of drives, and will be pretty much giving them away.....so it's rather obvious why I want to make sure all the data is destroyed.

[TVRepairNoobie]

Re: Wiping hard drives

Hi Topcat,

I formatted a bunch of IDE Seagate HDD (60+) using SeaTools from Seagate.

80GB took 30-45 minutes to format.

You could also try Active @ KillDisk free version. I think it might take longer to format each drive.

[goontron]

Re: Wiping hard drives

DBAN if your hosting Personally identifiable info on the drives. Otherwise with the data densities of the newish disk just zero it out. dd if=/dev/zero of= /dev/ad0 with *BSD

[dmill89]

Re: Wiping hard drives

DBAN if your hosting Personally identifiable info on the drives. Otherwise with the data densities of the newish disk just zero it out. dd if=/dev/zero of= /dev/ad0 with *BSD

X2 on DBAN it's free and gives you several different wiping options.

[stj]

Re: Wiping hard drives

DD for user data,
but with modern drives there is so much redundant suface area in them that you can never be sure all the data is really gone.
you wont protect it from a recovery company with it's own firmware.

[Compgeke]

Re: Wiping hard drives

DBAN is what I've always used. It's good enough we were able to use it on government surplus computers no problem. Also free and supports doing massive amounts of drives at once (we had a system setup to hold 12 disks for wiping but there's no real limit).

[Topcat]

Re: Wiping hard drives

awesome fellas, thanks!

[ratdude747]

Re: Wiping hard drives

Whats a good utility out there for obliterating data on a hard disk (sata) these days? I haven't had the need to do this since the SCSI days, and back then, I'd do a low-level format on them, which always did the trick....but that's not an option today apparently.

The reason I ask, I'm cycling out a bunch of drives, and will be pretty much giving them away.....so it's rather obvious why I want to make sure all the data is destroyed.

Are those the 74GB Raptors?

---

As for the formatting, DD does a good job... If keeping the drives didn't matter, I'd suggest your truck or perhaps a winchester, Remington, or browning shotgun

[Topcat]

Re: Wiping hard drives

Are those the 74GB Raptors?

---

As for the formatting, DD does a good job... If keeping the drives didn't matter, I'd suggest your truck or perhaps a winchester, Remington, or browning shotgun

Actually, it does include those. I have 4 of them. When I'm finished with the swapout, you're welcome to them.

They are still very usable, don't want to destroy them....otherwise, yes, they would become clay pigeons.

[noppa]

Re: Wiping hard drives

MHDD!
But any other tool that can write a pattern from 0 to MAXLAB
will do the job.


http://hddscan.com/
http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-...l-Format-Tool/
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/deta...r_windows.html

multiple passes are just a WASTE of time on modern (magnetic) disk,
if disk is healty a single pass will delete anything.

another option is internal secure erase, but is buggy on some disk.

[ratdude747]

Re: Wiping hard drives

Actually, it does include those. I have 4 of them. When I'm finished with the swapout, you're welcome to them.

They are still very usable, don't want to destroy them....otherwise, yes, they would become clay pigeons.

I'll be in STL this April... so if they're ready by then, I'll claim them then (if not, whenever they're ready I'll pay shipping). Now to find four other drives to put in my main rig (at least to do what I want to do, which requires 8 drives, and I already have 4 74GB's in said rig).

[fzabkar]

Re: Wiping hard drives

DD for user data,
but with modern drives there is so much redundant suface area in them that you can never be sure all the data is really gone.
you wont protect it from a recovery company with it's own firmware.

Nonsense. The only data that may be recoverable are those in reallocated sectors. Even so, an ATA Enhanced Secure Erase will wipe those, too.

[stj]

Re: Wiping hard drives

most people cant do a firmware based security reset.
most motherboard sata controllers wont pass those commands to the drive.

you can buy microcontroller based "dongles" for doing it, but they are actually intended for recovering drives with a forgotten hardware password.

[fzabkar]

Re: Wiping hard drives

That's just more nonsense. The Enhanced Secure Erase command is part of the ATA standard. It has nothing to do with Vendor Specific Commands. A freeware tool such as the following will do it for you:

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/secure-erase.html

[Per Hansson]

Re: Wiping hard drives

Yup, either DBAN or the drives internal secure erase command.
The latter if support is better since it also will clear hidden HPA areas like reallocated sectors etc.
The tool fzabkar linked above can be quite fnicky with what hardware it likes to run on though.
Tools like the excellent HDAT2 will also allow secure erase to be performed, along with showing all SMART statistics and what more might be of interest.
Or HDPARM if you are on Linux...

[fzabkar]

Re: Wiping hard drives

Beware - When SECURE ERASE doesn't erase at all :
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=1412

More secure erase bugs ...
https://cdn.badcaps-static.com/pdfs/...79eb060c40.pdf

Remember that simply zero-filling a flash drive or SSD won't touch the over-provisioned area. Wear levelling moves your data around so you will be very dependent on the drive's secure erase function or cryptoerase, if your drive supports it. SED HDDs also support cryptoerase, which means that your data are instantly erased by discarding the security key.

[kc8adu]

Re: Wiping hard drives

i often just use minitool partition wizard.use the zero fill.
unless you are a tla its good enough for a hdd.ssd are a bit tougher...

[Topcat]

Re: Wiping hard drives

yup, dban works quite nicely. Thanks for the recommendation.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Wiping hard drives

You can always use a gentle cloth with isopropyl alcohol

[Topcat]

Re: Wiping hard drives

or a really strong magnet