Guest franktee Posted August 23, 2007 Posted August 23, 2007 Is this possible, short of incineration? Thanks for helpful responses. franktee
Guest Og Posted August 23, 2007 Posted August 23, 2007 Re: Hard drive cleansed of all info 100%? "franktee" <franktee@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:C26789D7-AA9D-469D-8A6B-6F62108F5231@microsoft.com... > Is this possible, short of incineration? > Thanks for helpful responses. > franktee Do *not* think that mere incineration will wipe electro-magnetic data from a hard drive. The data-recovery industry earns a significant portion of its income by recovering data from drives that have been through house / office / business fires. If you are expecting to destroy data via *heat*, apply enough heat to melt the platters into an amorphous blob. There are utilities (free and otherwise) that will write "ones" and "zeros" across a drive. Multiple passes by such utilities make data recovery from said drive unlikely. Steve
Guest Chris K Posted August 23, 2007 Posted August 23, 2007 RE: Hard drive cleansed of all info 100%? First, delete all your personal stuff. This involves using the file search tool to locate all .jpg's , .gif's , .doc's , etc. Then, select any large folder of system files and make hundreds of copies until your hard drive is full. (What you're doing here is erasing by writing over what still may be there.)
Guest M.I.5¾ Posted August 23, 2007 Posted August 23, 2007 Re: Hard drive cleansed of all info 100%? "Chris K" <ChrisK@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:C04951EB-20B5-46D8-9E87-B6B0142502D6@microsoft.com... > First, delete all your personal stuff. This involves using the file > search > tool to locate all .jpg's , .gif's , .doc's , etc. Then, select any large > folder of system files and make hundreds of copies until your hard drive > is > full. (What you're doing here is erasing by writing over what still may > be > there.) Unfortunately, anyone determined to recover the original data can easily do so. Because of alignment tolerances and errors, the original files can frequently be found poking out from the edge of the newly written files. If you really want to make it impossible to recover data from an unwanted drive, the only reliable method is to physically destroy the drive. Well, you don't actually need to destroy all of it. You only need to dismantle the drive and destroy the platters (carefully - they are often made of glass).
Guest John John Posted August 23, 2007 Posted August 23, 2007 Re: Hard drive cleansed of all info 100%? http://dban.sourceforge.net/ Trust me, unless you have state secrets on your drive no one is going to spend the tens of thousands of dollars to *attempt* to recover files on your disk after you wipe it, an attempt that would most likely utterly fail. John franktee wrote: > Is this possible, short of incineration? > Thanks for helpful responses. > franktee
Guest Ken Blake Posted August 23, 2007 Posted August 23, 2007 Re: Hard drive cleansed of all info 100%? "franktee" <franktee@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:C26789D7-AA9D-469D-8A6B-6F62108F5231@microsoft.com... > Is this possible, short of incineration? Literally, no it's not. But you can certainly reduce the risk of someone retrieving anything on it to a very low number, and that's good enough for most people. It depends on how paranoid you want to be. Realize that no matter *what* you do, there is always a remnant of what was written still present on the disk, and using sophisticated techniques, a determined invader can sometimes recover it. For that reason, the US government doesn't rely on any software techniques to destroy really sensitive data, but physically melts the drive in a furnace. Most of us don't need that kind of security. Depending on what is on the drive, and recognizing that most people will neither know how, nor want to bother trying, to recover any old data on the drive, a simple format is sufficient for most people. And for the enormous majority of people a zero-fill utility is more than sufficient. If it were me, I wouldn't go any further than that, but only you know what is on the drive and how much someone else might be interested in it. If you want a zero-fill utility, there are several downloadable choices that Google will find for you. There probably isn't any particular reason to prefer one of them over the others. -- Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User Please reply to the newsgroup
Guest Alias Posted August 23, 2007 Posted August 23, 2007 Re: Hard drive cleansed of all info 100%? franktee wrote: > Is this possible, short of incineration? > Thanks for helpful responses. > franktee Stick it in the Microwave for a few minutes on High, a microwave that you don't plan to use later. Then run over it with a truck. Then rub the underside on a rug so that it gets plenty of static. Then pour hydrochloric acid on it. Then take a welding torch to it. Then take an ocean cruise and drop it in the middle of the Atlantic. Hundreds of years later scientists will claim that they have found the missing link between Mr Arnold and Frank. -- Alias To email me, remove shoes
Guest R. McCarty Posted August 23, 2007 Posted August 23, 2007 Re: Hard drive cleansed of all info 100%? For customer drives that I have to dispose of, I use Acronis Disk director's "Wipe" Utility and a pass with Cyberscrub set to a level to prevent hardware recovery. I used to throw the drives away but now always return them to customers and let them store/dispose of. If the drive is something I need to dispose of personally, I'll also use an old "Bulk Erase" degausser on the drive before throwing it away. Some people recommend a bashing with a sledgehammer to bend the platters but I'm too old to go beating up on old hard drives. "Alias" <iamalias@shoesgmail.com> wrote in message news:fak84u$u9q$1@aioe.org... > franktee wrote: >> Is this possible, short of incineration? >> Thanks for helpful responses. >> franktee > > Stick it in the Microwave for a few minutes on High, a microwave that you > don't plan to use later. Then run over it with a truck. Then rub the > underside on a rug so that it gets plenty of static. Then pour > hydrochloric acid on it. Then take a welding torch to it. Then take an > ocean cruise and drop it in the middle of the Atlantic. Hundreds of years > later scientists will claim that they have found the missing link between > Mr Arnold and Frank. > > -- > Alias > To email me, remove shoes
Guest franktee Posted August 23, 2007 Posted August 23, 2007 RE: Hard drive cleansed of all info 100%? Thanks for all the responses, they were all very helpful and also in good humor. Have a good day. franktee "franktee" wrote: > Is this possible, short of incineration? > Thanks for helpful responses. > franktee
Guest M.I.5¾ Posted August 24, 2007 Posted August 24, 2007 Re: Hard drive cleansed of all info 100%? "John John" <audetweld@nbnet.nb.ca> wrote in message news:u33lxFX5HHA.1168@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl... > http://dban.sourceforge.net/ > > Trust me, unless you have state secrets on your drive no one is going to > spend the tens of thousands of dollars to *attempt* to recover files on > your disk after you wipe it, an attempt that would most likely utterly > fail. > Anybody really determined can recover overwritten files. Even if they have been overwritten 3 or 4 times. However, as you note, it does take a lot of very specialised and expensive equipment and a good deal of time and patience. The likelihood of anyone trying is a function of the likely value of the recovered data.
Guest John John Posted August 24, 2007 Posted August 24, 2007 Re: Hard drive cleansed of all info 100%? M.I.5¾ wrote: > "John John" <audetweld@nbnet.nb.ca> wrote in message > news:u33lxFX5HHA.1168@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl... > >>http://dban.sourceforge.net/ >> >>Trust me, unless you have state secrets on your drive no one is going to >>spend the tens of thousands of dollars to *attempt* to recover files on >>your disk after you wipe it, an attempt that would most likely utterly >>fail. >> > > > Anybody really determined can recover overwritten files. Even if they have > been overwritten 3 or 4 times. However, as you note, it does take a lot of > very specialised and expensive equipment and a good deal of time and > patience. The likelihood of anyone trying is a function of the likely value > of the recovered data. Oh please do tell us who those "anybodies" are! I invite you to contact all the data recovery experts and all the data recovery companies out there and tell them that you have done a DOD wipe on a drive and then ask them if they can recover your data. 99.98% of them will outright tell you that they cannot recover the data on the drive, they will tell you that they can't even recover the data if it was simply overwritten once with other data, never mind secure wiping. Go ahead search the net and email them all and find out for yourself! Of the .02% remaining who tell you that they can .01% are lying and the other .01% will tell you to expect to pay at least $100,000 to even "try" to recover the data and they will make no guarantee of anything other than you will end up $100,000 poorer! The claims that data recovery can be made on wipe drives comes from Dr. Gutmann's research where he has shown that using Magnetic Force Microscopy he could recover data from wiped drives. Even Dr. Gutmann later stated that many were making Voodoo science of his research and that some were making greatly exaggerated claims of successful data recovery on wiped drives, Dr. Gutmann stated that the claims were even more so exaggerated considering the size of today's hard disks, his research was done when disks were relatively small. Using MFM or software that analyzes analog magnetic signals it is said that data can be recovered from wiped drives but keep in mind that MFM actually takes photographs of the bits where data is stored, quoting one source: "This pains taking process takes several months, and when it is finished these pictures have to be stitched together. Consider that a 20GB hard drive consists of 160, 000, 000, 000 bits. Including overheads that could rise to around 300, 000, 000, 000 bits, with each individual bit represented by a magnetic flux change. Since each MFM picture displaying this flux change uses around 100 bytes, the result is 40 Terabytes of data to be analyzed. Data recovery by this means can cost 100, 000s of Dollars..." And once again, there is no guarantee that the above procedure will recover data. On today's hard disks of hundreds of GB such recovery efforts would take thousands of man hours to gather and years to analize! The plain and simple fact, as stated in one of the reference papers below, is that: "Although such exotic methods of data recovery are theoretically possible, and have even been discussed in the peer-reviewed literature [11, 12], I have found no evidence of commercially viable recoveries being performed with them. Furthermore, I have seen no public demonstrations of any of these methods that show the recovery of files or even user data – only images or raw encoded data." Bottom line, if you work for the US army or the CIA and have state secrets on your drive then do as suggested by others and melt your drive in a furnace. For everybody else a secure wipe utility is sufficient, no one will waste enormous amounts of money trying to recover your emails from grandma and her secret meatloaf recipe! Do the environment a favour, don't waste and reuse when you can. John J. Sawyer- MAGNETIC DATA RECOVERY - THE HIDDEN THREAT (PDF) http://tinyurl.com/2mvkay Recovering Unrecoverable Data - The Need for Drive-Independant Data Recovery 527KB PDF. Charles H. Sobey Published April 14, 2004. http://www.actionfront.com/whitepaper/Drive-Independent Data Recovery Ver14Alrs.pdf Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory Peter Gutmann Department of Computer Science http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html Overwitten data: Why even the Secret Service can't get it back http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/5756
Guest David Starr Posted August 26, 2007 Posted August 26, 2007 Re: Hard drive cleansed of all info 100%? John John wrote: > M.I.5¾ wrote: >> "John John" <audetweld@nbnet.nb.ca> wrote in message >> news:u33lxFX5HHA.1168@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl... >> > Bottom line, if you work for the US army or the CIA and have state > secrets on your drive then do as suggested by others and melt your drive > in a furnace. For everybody else a secure wipe utility is sufficient, > no one will waste enormous amounts of money trying to recover your > emails from grandma and her secret meatloaf recipe! Do the environment > a favour, don't waste and reuse when you can. > > John > Once upon a time I did contract work for NSA. In those days regulations required classified disks and tapes "be overwritten with random numbers 6 times of more" before they could be considered unclassified. In theory, a decent diskwipe program that locates every disk block of the file to be wiped and overwrites it repeatedly should make the data vanish for good. In practice, there are bound to be some diskwipe programs that don't do a good job. Plus, there could be malware out there that fakes out the diskwipe program by intercepting the operating system disk read/write calls thus preserving the disk data. Was I writing the regs today, I might very well call for melting the drive mechanism in a furnace to avoid taking chances. David Starr
Guest John John Posted August 27, 2007 Posted August 27, 2007 Re: Hard drive cleansed of all info 100%? David Starr wrote: > John John wrote: > >> M.I.5¾ wrote: >> >>> "John John" <audetweld@nbnet.nb.ca> wrote in message >>> news:u33lxFX5HHA.1168@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl... >>> > >> Bottom line, if you work for the US army or the CIA and have state >> secrets on your drive then do as suggested by others and melt your >> drive in a furnace. For everybody else a secure wipe utility is >> sufficient, no one will waste enormous amounts of money trying to >> recover your emails from grandma and her secret meatloaf recipe! Do >> the environment a favour, don't waste and reuse when you can. >> >> John >> > Once upon a time I did contract work for NSA. In those days regulations > required classified disks and tapes "be overwritten with random numbers > 6 times of more" before they could be considered unclassified. > In theory, a decent diskwipe program that locates every disk block of > the file to be wiped and overwrites it repeatedly should make the data > vanish for good. In practice, there are bound to be some diskwipe > programs that don't do a good job. Plus, there could be malware out > there that fakes out the diskwipe program by intercepting the operating > system disk read/write calls thus preserving the disk data. Was I > writing the regs today, I might very well call for melting the drive > mechanism in a furnace to avoid taking chances. Of course, a hard drive can fall off a truck on the way to the furnace... There are easy way to test to see if the wipe utility did it's job. DBAN works fine and if that doesn't suit some people they can use Secure Erase instead. John John
Guest hdd_doctor Posted September 1, 2007 Posted September 1, 2007 Re: Hard drive cleansed of all info 100%? On 24 Aug, 08:11, "M.I.5¾" <no....@no.where.NO_SPAM.co.uk> wrote: > "John John" <audetw...@nbnet.nb.ca> wrote in message > > news:u33lxFX5HHA.1168@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl... > > >http://dban.sourceforge.net/ > > > Trust me, unless you have state secrets on your drive no one is going to > > spend the tens of thousands of dollars to *attempt* to recover files on > > your disk after you wipe it, an attempt that would most likely utterly > > fail. > > Anybody really determined can recover overwritten files. Even if they have > been overwritten 3 or 4 times. However, as you note, it does take a lot of > very specialised and expensive equipment and a good deal of time and > patience. The likelihood of anyone trying is a function of the likely value > of the recovereddata. Hi Overwritten data can not be recovered! period. MFM technology is not a reality or practical. A single one pass overwrite can not be recovered, any 'remnants' or 'ghost image' of data can not be recovered, we are a DR company and have examined this in detail at our lab. Magnetic storage media technology is based on GMR heads which encode the platter surface, this is a physical system which either 1 or 0 is stored at a particular place on the media, if the media receives a single pass of 1 from LBA 0 to the end of the user data area then physically the disk has changed the original data has been replaced with the new pattern, any previous data will be destroyed, comments of adjacent data to the left or the right of the media are unpractical. No magical machines exist to recover such data worldwide. Unless of course there exists a quantum hard drive which can encode both 1 and 0 in the same space and time - however we are uncertain about that!
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