Is there a fast & free way to wipe a hard drive?

Here's a pic of what I did to one just for fun.

hardDiskFront.jpg


Top is 9mm, middle is .22 Magnum, and bottom is .45.

Mike D.
 
Is there a fast & free way to wipe a hard drive?

Yep. Same way I just eliminated a yellow jackets nest that was larger than a soccer ball and out of reach with insect spray or a garden hose - 12 gauge. Okay, not free. There was the cost of 1 trap load with #8 shot.
 
+ 1 on Killdisk.
I have used it many times. Does a single pass write-over similar to doing a format - also a free option. Simply install the target drive as a slave and do a complete format. Don't forget to delete any partitions.
I also have Acronis ($) software that does a more complete wipe with multiple passes, but takes a long time. The larger the drive the more time it will take.
on a windows 95 computer, I used format c:\, however not sure if that still works today...

It is the obligation of your best friend to wipe your hard drive on death before the significant other discovers things no one should know about another person...
 
Millions of off-lease computers are sold with the hard drive intact. I realize that servers do most of the heavy lifting, but there must still be some sensitive data left on these drives. Many businesses must not share this paranoia.

At Megacorp all hard drives were degaused, and shreaded.

Personally I'd trust the job to a 30.06.

MRG
 
At Megacorp all hard drives were degaused, and shreaded.

Personally I'd trust the job to a 30.06.

MRG

I put all my extra hard drives to good use. I would never destroy a working drive or let it leave my possession. Its very easy to render a HD disc useless.
The OP asked for a FAST and FREE way to wipe a drive. I and others offered more than one solution that pretty well covered the spectrum. :)

PS - Thumbs up to your Megacorp for controlling data leak
 
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Had a few Drives. Needed secure erase.

One pic shows drives needing secure erase, the other is the erase process complete.
 

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Hiren 's Boot Cd.
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

This is an amazing set of utilities. I just used it to recover all data files from a failed drive. There are many different ways to do it with the cd.

There is also a very long list of drive utilities for erase.
 
It would be interesting to hear from someone with first hand knowledge pertaining to recovery of data from a hard drive after a single pass over-write.
i.e. - how hard was it, how much time was required and how complete was the recovery.
 
It would be interesting to hear from someone with first hand knowledge pertaining to recovery of data from a hard drive after a single pass over-write.
i.e. - how hard was it, how much time was required and how complete was the recovery.

I did this for DHs sister a few years ago. She had a hard drive issue of some kind and did a reformat on the drive just so it could be reused. She mentioned to DH that she lost a lot of family photos when she had to reformat. We had her send the drive to us, I hooked it up to an external drive housing and used a recapture program. I don't remember the name of it but it was one of the free ones.

The program would scan the drive and as it recovered pictures and documents I would save them. Each scan took about 1-1.5 hours. It was a clunky (but free) process and after a few scans I was able to recover about 80% of the contents. There were some pictures that would show as partially visible like the data was already gone. She was thrilled to have the pictures back.

Since this was a while ago I'm thinking you could find a better program for free or at a low cost.
 
It would be interesting to hear from someone with first hand knowledge pertaining to recovery of data from a hard drive after a single pass over-write.
i.e. - how hard was it, how much time was required and how complete was the recovery.

Several thing come into play. What type of file system ( FAT, FAT32, NTFS etc )
and what was done to erase/delete/reformat. For instance, a quick format with FAT/FAT32 just makes the space available by changing a bit in the File Allocation Table. NTFS does similar. You could use a disk editor like Norton Utilities to change the bit and make the files available again as the actual data was not touched.

This is the reason you use a third party tool that actually wipes the disk by overwriting each bit on the disk. Probably overkill for most home users though.
 
Here's a pic of what I did to one just for fun.

hardDiskFront.jpg


Top is 9mm, middle is .22 Magnum, and bottom is .45.

Mike D.

A former co-worker brought in a hard drive one Monday morning with three holes in it, just like your picture. Told us what caliber bullet made each hole. He said the hard drive failed a week after the warranty expired and he was pissed off at the manufacturer so he used it for target practice.

After that incident I tread a little more cautiously around that individual. :hide:
 
A former co-worker brought in a hard drive one Monday morning with three holes in it, just like your picture. Told us what caliber bullet made each hole. He said the hard drive failed a week after the warranty expired and he was pissed off at the manufacturer so he used it for target practice.

After that incident I tread a little more cautiously around that individual. :hide:

I used to joke to my fellow grad students that if they wanted to make sure they finish on time they should get a subscription to Guns & Ammo and have it delivered to their departmental mailbox.
 
Several thing come into play. What type of file system ( FAT, FAT32, NTFS etc )
and what was done to erase/delete/reformat. For instance, a quick format with FAT/FAT32 just makes the space available by changing a bit in the File Allocation Table. NTFS does similar. You could use a disk editor like Norton Utilities to change the bit and make the files available again as the actual data was not touched.

This is the reason you use a third party tool that actually wipes the disk by overwriting each bit on the disk. Probably overkill for most home users though.

Thanks for the clarification -
I was attempting to get to the heart of the OP. That is, if she were to use a fast and free utility to over-write a hard drive with a single pass of 1's or 0's, what is the practical risk to her when the computer is then passed off to the general public.
 
What ever you use, check to make sure everything is really gone. We bought a used PC from a fellow who worked on them part time. His wife worked at a local bank, and he told us it had belonged to her bank, but he had cleaned the hard drive. When we got home and booted it up, it still had hundreds of bank documents on it. My DW called the wife of this fellow and she told us to delete the stuff, but not to call the bank. I did read one of the letters that caught my eye. It was to one of the richest men in the county about non payment on a loan. We zapped them all. But we never used the PC much, so I would guess it is still on the hard drive.

Just great , you baited the hook. Now, who is the rich deadbeat ? Trump?
 
Thanks for the clarification -
I was attempting to get to the heart of the OP. That is, if she were to use a fast and free utility to over-write a hard drive with a single pass of 1's or 0's, what is the practical risk to her when the computer is then passed off to the general public.

A single pass should be sufficient. Supposedly it was possible by putting the platters under an electron microscope you could see previous states of the magnetic bits which could then be reassembled...

Here's some general info that is pretty good, How To Completely Erase a Hard Drive

This more interesting, discusses the need for multiple passes https://www.anti-forensics.com/disk-wiping-one-pass-is-enough/
 
Wasn't aware newer was better.

I do remember being at a briefing at a vendor that provides DASD solutions. They had a 'Distinguished Engineer' come in to talk to us about this subject. He claimed(with their current technology) it took a minimum of 7 passes. He gave solid reasons, 50% was engineering geek speak(I did software, not hardware), some that went right over my head.

My policy of the 30.06 cleaning is all I will ever trust my data to, remains unchanged.

MRG
 
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