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Possible Duplicate:
Securely erasing all data from a hard drive

I'm going to give my HDD away, so I'm writing it full of crap so there is no possibility to recover any of my files I had there. Although, I have heard even re-written drives can be recovered some data from them, but I don't consider a high tech guys ever touching it, unless its very easy? I would like to know if it's possible... and how many times I need to write it over?

On the real question here; could it be possible to write into the multiple disks inside the HDD simultaneously and thus increasing total data write rate? So lets say if there are 6 disks inside, I could get 6x write speed if I wrote the same data to each one of them at same time.

Any other suggestions are welcome, since I am writing with 22MB/s speed ATM (old drive, or crappy code?), this will take a while.

Edit: For a security note, my HDD is around 10 years old, or less, and 60GB in size. Does this need only one wipe?

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  • @Jason, sorry, heh, edited it just when you asked it.
    – Rookie
    Dec 11, 2011 at 18:58
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    fastest is a one pass of zero fill as suggested by Basile Starynkevitch, No data can be recovered after a single overwrite, multiple overwrites are a waste of time...nber.org/sys-admin/overwritten-data-guttman.html
    – Moab
    Dec 11, 2011 at 19:06
  • Unscrew it and empty your bin in to it! :) Dec 11, 2011 at 19:06
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    too bad this was migrated, i would liked to know about how to do it in c++...
    – Rookie
    Dec 11, 2011 at 19:07
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    @Rookie: Then ask again on StackOverflow, and specify that you want a C++ solution.
    – SLaks
    Dec 11, 2011 at 19:13

6 Answers 6

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I used CCleaner a few times, which is a free tool that does the job. enter image description here

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    +1, as CCleaner does not only fill your HDD with garbage, it also does it securely (unrecoverable). I don't think CCleaner does it faster, but I also don't think you can write at the same time to multiple platters in a hard disk.
    – jcisio
    Dec 11, 2011 at 19:18
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    @jcisio, looks to be 2x faster than my own program, probably because this is writing zeroes only? also weird that i cant hear my HDD "scratch" at all now. my version did a lot sound, even when i just wrote one file in one big partition.
    – Rookie
    Dec 11, 2011 at 19:34
  • @Mark, CCleaner doesnt remove the hidden data?
    – Rookie
    Dec 12, 2011 at 16:06
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    @Rookie It can remove everything, you just need to select this option in the Wipe combobox.
    – oleksii
    Dec 12, 2011 at 17:23
  • @Mark, that metadata is filenames, right? Are there programs to read these filenames, even when i had overwritten all the data?
    – Rookie
    Dec 14, 2011 at 12:53
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You should use DBAN or similar tools.

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  • I think ill pass, since i have 2 terabytes of data in my 3 other disks that i would like to keep. "DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect" o.O if i understood it correctly?
    – Rookie
    Dec 11, 2011 at 19:07
  • @Rookie You did understand that correctly. In your case the use of DBAN is inadvisable.
    – Duijf
    Dec 11, 2011 at 19:13
  • Just physically disconnect drives with data you want to keep. DBAN is the solution for this problem. You can use something like Eraser inside of Windows to overwrite free space, but that won't ensure everything is wiped. The only way to do that is to overwrite the entire drive. Dec 12, 2011 at 1:45
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    @SLaks would you care to explain why this is better than CCleaner or the other suggestions?
    – Ivo Flipse
    Dec 12, 2011 at 6:43
  • @IvoFlipse Agreed, you need a clear explanation of why this user should use DBAN versus a built in tool. DBAN will completely wipeout any connected device which can be dangerous if all you are trying to do is delete an external hard drive Jan 5, 2017 at 8:17
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Just fill it with zero bytes, on Linux with something like

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=1M count=1000

this is enough for most purposes and is the fastest thing available.

(there is probably an equivalent on your system, and you could boot a live-boot CDROM linux to run it otherwise)

Of course, if you had military grade secrets on the disk, and/or you are afraid of the CIA, it is probably not enough. (In that case, destroy physically your disk).

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    The question kinda has Win XP in tags... Dec 11, 2011 at 19:02
  • Indeed, i guess he answered just before i edited the tags, sorry.
    – Rookie
    Dec 11, 2011 at 19:05
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    Yes. I added a suggestion to find the equivalent on WinXP which I don't know... (I am using Linux since 1993) Dec 11, 2011 at 19:10
  • chrysocome.net/dd Dec 11, 2011 at 19:14
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sdelete - there is really no need for any of those multiple overwrite DoD stuff anymore

edit: sdelete is written by microsoft, it 'knows' about NTFS hidden regions, out-of-band data and all the other fun little features. It requires no install and is quick and easy.

The Mil Spec 'you must overwrite exactly 37 times with random data in the following order' stuff is mostly security app marketing and half remembered DoD requirements. It was argueably necessary on early bit-for-bit and even MFM hard drives where you had a chance of recovering partial zones if you read it under an EM. Although in practice it was more to do with wandering heads that often left earlier tracks entirely intact. With modern GMR hard drives the main concern is the firmware mapping out bad sectors leaving valid data that the OS doesn't know about.

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  • Care to explain why its not needed and why sdelete is the right tool for the job?
    – Ivo Flipse
    Dec 12, 2011 at 6:43
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    Density of bits on the disk mean that, with current technology, there's no way to see or read the "lasting" force like they can do with REALLY REALLY old hard drive platters. Something like that, anyway.
    – Rob
    Dec 12, 2011 at 15:39
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Use a Linux LiveCD to run something like

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda1 bs=1M

That way you can be sure that you're overwriting everything in the partition and not just the free space. If you're ultra-paranoid you can also run it multiple times, but unless you're sending a disk which formerly had military secrets to someone with ties to foreign governments you probably don't have to worry.

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    /dev/zero is secure enough and would be MUCH faster.
    – Rob
    Dec 12, 2011 at 15:38
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Linux has a standard tool called shred which overwrites a file (or drive) several times with random data, to prevent retrieval of deleted files. If you don't want anyone to know you've used shred, there is an option to overwrite everything with zeroes in the last pass.

To use shred on a disk, find out what it's called (usually something like /dev/hda or /dev/sdc). Then open a terminal and run:

shred -vfz -n 10 /dev/hda

Where /dev/hda is replaced by whatever is the device's name. This will overwrite the entire disk ten times and one last time with all zeroes.

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