What steps to take to securely delete data from an HD?

I have a hard drive that is giving me problems, but the problems are related to my use, and not problems with the hardware itself. I am considering selling the hard drive on ebay, or some other similar place. I'm just wondering what I should do to ensure that any data I once had on that drive is not recoverable. No it's not "kiddie porn", it's stuff like financial records, personal data files, etc. Are there any programs I should use, or will just formatting it, filling it up with large files, formatting again, and repeating do it?

There is software available which conforms to US Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DoD 5220.22-M. Some is freeware, like Active@ Kill Disk and some carry a small price, like Kryptel.

Have a look at these, or you can google for others (search Secure File Deletion)


Cheers:

When we are getting rid of a drive we use a low level format program from the hard drive manafacturer and then open it up and stick a huge magnet on it for a couple of days. Without a professional setup, most people probably will not be able to get anything off of the disk.

Thanks for the info

If what you're trying to do is hide the info from the goverment, (you probably aren't but this is cool to hear anyways...), the goverment can use a method they specialize in to retrieve data from destroyed hard disks called Disk Splicing. What they do, even if you crush, burn, poop on, or pour acid on you HD, they reconstruct it and use electron microscopes and all kinds of sensors to retrieve traces of information. Its obviously expensive, and they wouldn't do it to find out if you cheated on a test, but they would do it if you were a Bin Laden, or Michael Jackson.

Heres the link they do it at- pretty cool stuff
http://www.dcfl.gov

Quote:

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Originally posted here by Soda_Popinsky
If what you're trying to do is hide the info from the goverment, (you probably aren't but this is cool to hear anyways...), the goverment can use a method they specialize in to retrieve data from destroyed hard disks called Disk Splicing. What they do, even if you crush, burn, poop on, or pour acid on you HD, they reconstruct it and use electron microscopes and all kinds of sensors to retrieve traces of information. Its obviously expensive, and they wouldn't do it to find out if you cheated on a test, but they would do it if you were a Bin Laden, or Michael Jackson.

Heres the link they do it at- pretty cool stuff
http://www.dcfl.gov

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That is quite cool, its pretty scary that you really can't destroy data anymore though. I'm sure if you overwrote and formatted it enough times, it would become unrecoverable at sometime.

Here's how:

1. Wipe disk with program that overwrites at least 17 times (you need to know the details of how the drive handles data or that becomes 32 in a catch-all scenario)

2. Put HDD in deep freeze for 48 hours

3. Pulverise (grind to powder) the frozen HDD

4. Melt the residual powder

5. Dissolve it in acid

6. Irradiate the acid to a lethal level of toxicity (limits amount of time a person can work)

If anyone says they can recover data from that..............they are lying.

[steps #5 and #6 are my own ideas......but I am paranoid :shocked: ]

If they wanted you that badly, someone would have "let the hammer down" a long time before?.....us Brits say "put the wires on " _ _
........................ |

I have actually encountered #1-#4 in real life.

Cheers :D

#1-3 would probably be sufficient, you could just stick it in the garbage disposal or a blender or something.

I would just poop on it, who would want to put together a harddrive with poop all over it? They'd be like, "Ewww, this one has poop on it...." If I worked at that dcfl place, I sure as hell won't be lookin at poop through a microscope. Imagine, if you were the cop that confiscated the HD, would you put the poopy HD in a plastic bag and say, "Evidence!" or would you sneak it into a dumpster? Dumpster for me.

edit
Nihil, I'm looking for the article, but I have a magazine that says freezing a HD can actually be a last ditch resort to retrieving data off it if it fails... Thats kinda weird, huh? I'm looking for it now, I wonder if thats true, i've never heard of it.

you can always try PGP wipe. it should do the job


have fan