How to wipe large drive over 3TB?

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Jun 6, 2010
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Can anyone give some suggestions on some free programs to wipe my Seagate 4TB HDD before I sell it? I'm assuming Killdisk and DBAN don't have such support for large drives since I keep getting errors when trying to load those from the boot CD's.
 
Can anyone give some suggestions on some free programs to wipe my Seagate 4TB HDD before I sell it? I'm assuming Killdisk and DBAN don't have such support for large drives since I keep getting errors when trying to load those from the boot CD's.
i think seatools can secure erase.
"Full Erase (SATA) Full Erase will write zeros to all sectors on the drive. Full Erase will take several hours to complete and may be aborted at any time. The boot drive should not be listed as an available choice. Boot drive detection is sometimes difficult so be careful to confirm that the boot drive is not available or selected. "
 
35802.png

have a sense of humor :D
 
i think seatools can secure erase.
"Full Erase (SATA) Full Erase will write zeros to all sectors on the drive. Full Erase will take several hours to complete and may be aborted at any time. The boot drive should not be listed as an available choice. Boot drive detection is sometimes difficult so be careful to confirm that the boot drive is not available or selected. "

Thanks! I also found out WD Diagnostics has something similar. I'm letting that run today since it looks like it'll take 8hrs+
 
I use ActiveKilldisk all the time with large drives. You probably just need to update.
 
Most drives today have the secure erase feature built into the drive. This is the quickest and more reliable way to wipe a drive as it gets all the sectors--even those that are not accessable to the interface. I read up n this a while back and it amazed me to what extent fips drives have to go to be secure. (y)
 
Windows build in full format since vista does a Zero fill acrsso the disk now. can evne do multiple wipes with hte command line

cipher /w:<Drive>: fills all empty space with 3 iterations of wipeisn (0,1,random)

ATA Secured arase command would be the best option if it implemented correctly in the drive as it will touches arease unreachable by OS. but again you are now trusting the device

so yeah not big reason to go get software for it fir just simple user space wiping
 
Most drives today have the secure erase feature built into the drive. This is the quickest and more reliable way to wipe a drive as it gets all the sectors--even those that are not accessable to the interface. I read up n this a while back and it amazed me to what extent fips drives have to go to be secure. (y)
^ This. I haven't done it in a while but I usually just use hdparm utility in Linux to initiate a secure erase. Last time I needed it most distros included it in the installer image, so you can just boot the installer and switch over to the console to run hdparm.

I've never sold a drive. By the time I get rid of them it's usually not worth the hassle, so my final wipe process normally starts with finding my set of "security" screwdriver bits and peeling off all the "warranty void if removed" stickers and often involves disc platter frisbee. SSD disposal starts with the security bits and ends with a hammer.

If you're really paranoid do multiple overwrites with random patterns on mechanical drives too along with the secure erase. The government (think CIA) can get some of the data back after multiple overwrites. That's really not much of a threat for personal data on a used hard drive. It takes a lab, a lot of time, knowledge, etc. -- so not cheap at all. The question is how much could your data be worth to someone and would they even think about bothering even if they could get an appropriately equipped lab to do it? It's not worth that kind of hassle just to steal someone's identity. The thieves will just go find a softer target.
 
^ This. I haven't done it in a while but I usually just use hdparm utility in Linux to initiate a secure erase. Last time I needed it most distros included it in the installer image, so you can just boot the installer and switch over to the console to run hdparm.

I've never sold a drive. By the time I get rid of them it's usually not worth the hassle, so my final wipe process normally starts with finding my set of "security" screwdriver bits and peeling off all the "warranty void if removed" stickers and often involves disc platter frisbee. SSD disposal starts with the security bits and ends with a hammer.

If you're really paranoid do multiple overwrites with random patterns on mechanical drives too along with the secure erase. The government (think CIA) can get some of the data back after multiple overwrites. That's really not much of a threat for personal data on a used hard drive. It takes a lab, a lot of time, knowledge, etc. -- so not cheap at all. The question is how much could your data be worth to someone and would they even think about bothering even if they could get an appropriately equipped lab to do it? It's not worth that kind of hassle just to steal someone's identity. The thieves will just go find a softer target.
Just don't sell any drives on eBay. :)
 
Just don't sell any drives on eBay. :)
Why not? The built in secure erase is beyond writing the drive. Hell, for drives that are encrypted, all you have to do is change the encryption code and secure erase it and it's all toast. I doubt anyone on ebay is trying to take drives and get the data off of them--you'd want to intercept the drives earlier like when a corporation sends them to the recycler. Hence why most companies just shred the drives.
 
Once again you only have to do one write over on a modern HDD from the past 25 years.
 
Once again you only have to do one write over on a modern HDD from the past 25 years.
on a theoreticall levels there is way to read prior data after overwrite by reading the magnetic charge on and analog level. nothing some anynormal person would be able to do and it hasnt to the best of my knowledge been executed in real wordl
but stil depending on threat model 3 wipes might be feasible. not for OP though
 
on a theoreticall levels there is way to read prior data after overwrite by reading the magnetic charge on and analog level. nothing some anynormal person would be able to do and it hasnt to the best of my knowledge been executed in real wordl
but stil depending on threat model 3 wipes might be feasible. not for OP though
Yeah, it’s not even theoretical anymore. HDDs have to do a shit ton of signal analysis just to figure out what is currently stored on the media. Figuring out what used to be there is nearly impossible. The capability to read the remnant magnetism around a track died when manufacturers stopped recording bits as discrete flux reversals and went to changing the magnetic properties just enough to affect the signal pattern in a way the signal processor can tell zeroes from ones.
 
If you're in Linux.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX
or
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdX
 
Yeah, it’s not even theoretical anymore. HDDs have to do a shit ton of signal analysis just to figure out what is currently stored on the media. Figuring out what used to be there is nearly impossible. The capability to read the remnant magnetism around a track died when manufacturers stopped recording bits as discrete flux reversals and went to changing the magnetic properties just enough to affect the signal pattern in a way the signal processor can tell zeroes from ones.
That not what im talking about though. We agree reading the remains around track died many years ago. When we went away from LFE drives
I'm talking about reading the signal on an analog levels
Drives doe not make perfect 0 and 1

In a perfect world a 0 would b 0% charge and 1 would be 100% charge ( or reversed)
however it is often seen that is simply not the case
so drive read with a threshold. below 40% charge is a 0 and above 60% charge is a 1 ( in between is dead zone)

When you have a 1 that is hovering around 90% charge then being written 0 ti it is getting pulled down and hits lets says 18%
a 0 already at 18% charge being overwritten with a 0 get pulled down to 2%

from the drive perspective both those 2 bits of 2% and 18% charge er zeroes
but if we read the analog levels of the bit charge we can see clearly sign of the prior data
18% charged 0 most likely was a 1
2% charged 0 most likely was a 0

Vice versa for 1 ones

this is literally the reason the DoD standard is as it is. 3 wipes. fist 2 passes has to be reverse of each other. This is to pull the charge up/down or down/up to ensure the analog charge level does not hint previous data. then the final layers is random data because random is alwas nice to toss at problems to make them harder.



but again. last time i checked nobody has successful pulled of the method but is seen as a possibility with the right requirement and with security you need to take possibility into accounts
and again not really a problem for OP
 
The point of my posts are just to save people wasting their time (considerable on a 4TB drive) and energy on old IT wives tech tales. That's all.

You know I bet if I said "Don't slam your nuts in a refrigerator door because it won't do them any good!" Several would still come out with posts recommending why they should do it or doubting the wisdom of my post. :LOL:
 
Nobody is going to be putting your drives through the millions of dollars of equipment it would take to theoretically recover data from a drive that has been zero'd.

In Windows diskpart, select your disk then issue the command "clean all" and you'll be fine.
 
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Nobody is going to be putting your drives through the millions of dollars of equipment it would take to theoretically recover data from a drive that has been zero'd.

In Windows diskpart, select your disk then issue the command "clean all" and you'll be fine.
That doesn’t zero it. Just nukes the partitions and the table format.
 
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