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How to completely remove all data on a HD?

G

geckoman

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 9, 2003
Messages
325
I'm going to be selling a couple computers I've got laying around, but before I put them up for sale, I want to completely wipe the hard drives clean. I know that Formatting the drive doesn't REALLY remove all the data, so what's a good way to remove all the info on my hard drives?
 
Download DBAN .iso and burn it to a cdrw, then boot the computer with the cd you just burned and the disk you want to sell plugged, once DBAN boots, select autonuke (beware autonuke wipes all existing disks, unplug any other disk you dont want to erase)

Wait for a couple of hours for disk to be wiped :D

oldmx
 
You can use the "zero fill" utility from most HD manufacturers websites which is fairly secure. If you want to be very, very, very sure all data is erased try Eraser
 
I learned this nifty trick from the good folks at NAMBLA. It seems that using very powerful magnets will make extracting files from your HD impossible. Not even the FBI can touch it.
 
Monkey_feces said:
I learned this nifty trick from the good folks at NAMBLA. It seems that using very powerful magnets will make extracting files from your HD impossible. Not even the FBI can touch it.
Click to expand...
Your data is just fine with the (very strong) magnets that sit within an inch of the platters. Do you have any idea how strong a magnet would need to be to actualy wipe a hard disk? :eek:
 
Its alright, I wear a purple cape with a red jumpsuit and I have this purple helmet. If my powers cannot dispose of the data, I can get my evil brotherhood of mutants to dispose of the drive containing compromising "data".
 
OldMX said:
Download DBAN .iso and burn it to a cdrw, then boot the computer with the cd you just burned and the disk you want to sell plugged, once DBAN boots, select autonuke (beware autonuke wipes all existing disks, unplug any other disk you dont want to erase)

Wait for a couple of hours for disk to be wiped :D

oldmx
Click to expand...


Yes, DBAN. No end-user will be able to recover a lick of data from the wiped disks.
 
Monkey_feces said:
I learned this nifty trick from the good folks at NAMBLA. It seems that using very powerful magnets will make extracting files from your HD impossible. Not even the FBI can touch it.
Click to expand...

maybe not the fbi. but there is a company the government uses to get information off of drives that are "not recoverable." as long as there is any part of the disk left, they can get the information off. if you stab through the drive, they can go through a painstaking process of getting the information from the physically missing part of the drive. scary huh?
 
Cipher -w works on Windows 2000/XP Pro and up, and it's free.

If you want to put it past pro data recovery, grind the platters to dust.
 
davidlem said:
Yes, DBAN. No end-user will be able to recover a lick of data from the wiped disks.
Click to expand...

That or a simple drop from about a foot off the ground ;)
Works every time :p
 
-(Xyphox)- said:
That or a simple drop from about a foot off the ground ;)
Works every time :p
Click to expand...

Not quite every time. I've dropped numerous drives and some still work to this day. They're not critical drives, just parts drives.
 
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