Questions tagged [wipe]
The wipe tag has no usage guidance.
136
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91
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How can I wipe a broken hard disk drive before sending it back to the manufacturer for maintenance?
The hard drive of my laptop died, the manufacturer wants me to send it so that they can investigate, but I'm concerned that the drive might contain sensitive information.
When I say the drive is ...
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5
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How can I securely wipe an SSD? [duplicate]
One of our clients is asking for DOD-7 Pass Erase method for SSD's.
We tried wiping an SSD 256 GB (Samsung Make) via Tabernus lan, but it's taking too much time.
Please guide me how to wipe the SSD ...
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42
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5
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Is it possible to wipe SSD with strong magnetic force?
I know it is possible to wipe a hard disk, but I'm wondering if something similar can be done to SSD disks as well?
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34
votes
5
answers
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Is using multiple passes for wiping a disk really necessary?
To stupid people, like me, you would have thought overwriting each bit on a disk would render the data completely unrecoverable.
Why do disk wiping tools have the option for multiple passes, i.e. 3 ...
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24
votes
7
answers
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zero fill vs random fill
Many tutorials suggest that i should fill a disk with /dev/urandom instead of /dev/zero if i want it to be unrecoverable. But I don't quite get it, how can a disk still be recoverable after being zero-...
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6
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how long to zero a drive with dd? [closed]
How long will it take to zero fill 1TB (using dd dev/zero)?
I'm actually doing two 500G drive simultaneously if it matters.
- 161
15
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3
answers
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Complete wiping of hard drive - shred, wipe or dd?
I need to wipe all data of a number of hard drives, from Ubuntu Linux. I have found three command line tools: shred, wipe and dd. It seems kind of random what people recommend. Sometimes someone ...
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13
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6
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If a hard drive has sectors that are corrupt or physically damaged, can those sectors be written over?
I have a bootable FreeBSD drive that I'm using to wipe the contents of a hard drive before donating the PC to my local thrift store. I'm using the following command to achieve this:
dd if=/dev/urandom ...
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10
votes
4
answers
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Why some recovery tools are still able to find deleted files after I purge Recycle Bin, defrag the disk and zero-fill free space?
As far as I understand, when I delete (without using Recycle Bin) a file, its record is removed from the file system table of contents (FAT/MFT/etc...) but the values of the disk sectors which were ...
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8
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8
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How to wipe a USB hard drive
I have a USB hard drive that I'm planning on donating. Before I donate it, however, I want to be sure that it has been completely and unrecoverably wiped of personal information.
Darik's Boot-and-...
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3
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How can I wipe a flash drive from Linux?
I recently used a flash drive to try MeeGo on my netbook. Unfortunately, the application I used to write MeeGo to the flash drive created a new partition in a rather unusual format. The Ubuntu disk ...
- 458
7
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3
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Zeroing a file from command-line
Is there a built-in command in Windows 7 or higher to fill a file with zero / NULL bytes?
The processing should happen in-place (i.e. it should modify the actual disk sectors / bytes of the file), ...
- 1,809
7
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2
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5k
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Why should we wipe disks multiple times? [duplicate]
There exists various ways of destroying the data on a disk. Even simple wipes differ, some disk utilities give these options:
Format (does not actually wipe)
Wipe 1 time with zero
Wipe 1 time with ...
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3
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Can Windows 7 cipher.exe securely wipe USB drive?
Using the command line tool cipher.exe built into Windows 7, can it be used to securely wipe a USB attached drive?
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5
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How safely does reinstalling Windows wipe old data?
I've got a set of computers that have had privileged information on that I want to be able to re-use. If I used a Windows boot drive to re-install Windows, how sufficient would that be towards keeping ...
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2
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Has DBAN completed wiping when it's showing an advertisement?
I ran DBAN (Darik's Boot And Nuke) on my notebook. When it finished, it showed a message saying "press any key to continue". When I pressed a key, I got an advertisement page, and then it stopped.
...
5
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7
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Disk wiping other than DBAN
Sometimes using DBAN takes several days to wipe a disk. What alternatives do you have experience with that work within a few hours and offer the simplicity of DBAN? I am mainly interested in free ...
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3
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how to restore windows 7 to a know working state every time it boots
A couple of days ago my mother asked me to set up a computer at her house, she wants to use it to basic web browsing, video chat and nothing more.
The problem is, neither my mother nor my sister know ...
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5
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4
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what is the fastest way to erase/wipe hard drive? [duplicate]
I have a 1T usb 2.0 portable hard drive that I need to get rid of.
I didn't know it's such a pain to get it wiped!
Tried Eraser, 1 pass(psuedorandom) by default took 18 hours.
Tried Western Digital'...
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5
votes
1
answer
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SDelete: where to get the physical disk number from?
Until recently, I have deleted hard disks this way:
Delete all partitions in Windows
Create a single partition for the whole drive
Assign a drive letter
Run sdelete -z with the drive letter
New ...
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4
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9
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How to reset an NTFS MFT for no tracks of deleted files names to be found there?
When a file is deleted from the hard drive and the free space it used to occupy is securely overwritten (wiped), recovery tools can still usually find the file was there and show its name. As far as I ...
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4
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2
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Checking if any data exists on a presumably empty storage device
So, say you've completed a full pass of:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1M
Then, you'd like to make sure the destination has been really zeroed out (ignoring the confirmation messages from dd and ...
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4
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3
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2k
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How to wipe all data on HDD (Windows 10 system partition)?
I am a bit surprised that I didn't found a canoncial (= recommended by Microsoft) way of doing this by searching Google but here we are:
I am tasked to delete all data safely from a Windows 10 ...
4
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2
answers
413
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why writing 0's or random binary over you data just once isnt fully secure?
When wiping data with some programs you get different levels of 'security', i.e. the number of times they overwrite the data.
A basic level may be just overwriting it with 0's or random binary ...
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4
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3
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2k
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Linux format hard disk, the data should not be recoverable
I am new to Linux. Can any one give me a suggestion on how to format hard disk. That is I need to clean the data, data should not be recoverable again. It should be permanently deleted.
Sukesh
4
votes
1
answer
7k
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Which tool should I use to wipe free space on Windows 7 [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How to quickly and effectively wipe a Win7 x64 hard drive
Which tool should I use to wipe free space on Windows 7?
It should be free and preferably open source.
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4
votes
1
answer
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Securely wiping a drive with DD, /dev/zero or /dev/urandom?
I have to securely wipe all data from a hard drive as I'm going to give it away. I plan on using the dd under linux utility to do so, after a little bit of research, I found two ways of doing so:
dd ...
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4
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1
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2k
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Is there a faster way to verify that a drive has been fully zeroed?
In the coming months, I'm going to need to zero out a lot of disks. After wiping each drive, I need a quick way of making sure that the drive has been completely filled with zeroes.
I could open each ...
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1
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Do I still have to wipe a drive which was encrypted with BitLocker, then formatted?
I want to sell a HDD. It was BitLocker-encrypted and I formatted it, removing the encryption.
Could there still be recoverable data on the drive? E.g. if I never used all space on the drive while it ...
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3
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5
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3k
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Are there options for disk wiping software that do not require booting into the software first?
I have an external hard disk and a HDD that was formally internal but is now connected via a SATA-to-USB adapter.
I'd like to wipe both drives, but I feel uncomfortable booting into DBAN and other ...
3
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6
answers
2k
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Securely format a hard drive [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Erasing data before selling a computer
I have just taken 8 old 250gb drives out of one of our servers.
I need to securely wipe all the data on these drives, before they are ...
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3
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6
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43k
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How to wipe a hard drive so that it's safe to recycle (while keeping the recovery partition intact)
My aunt and grandparents have some computers that they want to get rid of, all of them have Windows XP and a recovery partition (which allows them to restore the computer to factory settings). So what ...
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3
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4
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5k
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How do I wipe a hard drive using Backtrack 5 RC3?
I need to wipe an entire hard drive and the only tools I have are Backtrack 5 RC3 and the internet. Apparently earlier versions of Backtrack had a tool to wipe the hard drive, called wipe.
I need to ...
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2
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How do you stop the Ubuntu "wipe" (wiping an NTFS disk) in progress?
I didn't realise that the Linux wipe utility runs 25 passes by default. I'm wiping a 320 GB external disk drive, (it's about 25% into Pass 3 started around 4 PM yesterday, it's now 1 PM).
Can I just ...
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3
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1
answer
2k
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Can you effectively wipe a hard drive from the current Linux OS?
I have a laptop that is barely alive. The screen is busted. The power cord is frayed. The power indicator flashes red sometimes. Etc. So I want to wipe the hard drive as effectively as I can before I ...
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3
votes
5
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11k
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How to quickly and effectively wipe a Win7 x64 hard drive
I have a Windows 7 Enterprise x64 system and need to wipe the 1.5TB hard disk drive quickly and effectively. Quick, I guess, is a relative term; so more quickly than I've seen with some wipe utilities ...
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3
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2
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132
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Wipe hard-drive split over several days?
My problem is that wiping the drive takes 1.5 days, and I absolutely need to have my computer off during the night. My fan is too noisy, my room is very small, and I sleep next to the computer.
Is it ...
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1
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7k
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How strong of a magnet would be needed to mess up this hardware?
I just bought a magnetic dry erase board that also came with 2 small magnets. I intend to carry these items everyday in my backpack alongside my laptops and my phone. Some days, I will have my Lenovo ...
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3
votes
3
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11k
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Erase all data from Samsung laptop
I am selling my old Samsung laptop which I got in 2009, and I would like to erase all data. When I press F4 and go to Samsung Recovery and choose the restore, it restores my computer to the same state ...
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2
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3k
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Difference between DBAN and dd command to securely wipe a HDD
I have read about dd and see that it can be used to securely wipe a HDD. But there is also a program called DBAN to wipe the HDD as well.
I know that using a live gnu-linux ISO I can wipe my HDD by ...
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What does the command "fsutil file createnew" really do?
In the Windows OS command line, when I need to quickly create a file of arbitrary size, I use the command:
fsutil file createnew <filename> <size_in_bytes>
I recently created a 100GB file ...
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3
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3
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3k
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How to wipe a disk completely that has been encrypted by ransomware
Recently my HDD was encrypted by a ransomware attack (I have no idea which encryption method has been used) and as a result I cannot access the contents of my HDD (see how Disk 1 seems in the first ...
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2
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Securely erase empty disk space on a Win 3.1 / DOS 6.22 system with builtin tools
I have a retro laptop from 1994, an IBM Thinkpad 340, which I want to give away, but first want to securely erase its deleted files.
The system contains both a GUI and CLI undelete application, which ...
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2
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How to wipe an Asus laptop and not lose the Windows product key?
How do I wipe my Asus laptop without losing the Windows product key?
The machine was originally 8.1, now it's 10.
Where can I find this key? Should I make a backup of the recovery partition? If yes, ...
3
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2
answers
346
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How to delete password in vim without storing it in a register?
I have a password in a text file. I'm editing the file in vim and I want to delete the password. If I just delete it, say with 'dw', it's stored in several registers. I want to avoid keeping any track ...
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4
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Does wiping free space on disk free any space?
CCleaner has a feature for wiping free space on a disk. CCleaner's documentations says:
When you delete a file, Windows removes the reference to that file, but doesn't delete the actual data that ...
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2
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How to wipe Macintosh OS X v10.5.8 but leave software and OS?
Are there any free tools to wipe the user contents of a Macintosh running OS X v10.5.8 to keep the operating system and software products installed but remove any user data for selling the computer to ...
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4
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How does writing zeroes to a drive remove data from it?
I know a fair bit about the process of securely wiping drives, including that one wipe is usually sufficient and that no-one has yet (publicly) been able to recover a bit of data from one pass of ...
- 12.8k
2
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3
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3k
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Can I reliably use `dd` to wipe the root filesystem on a running Linux server?
I have a (physically) remote server I'd like to securely destroy. Unfortunately, the disk is partitioned with a single, large root partition and nothing else. Can I reliably use dd to wipe the device ...
2
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1
answer
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Is that possible (theorically) to recover after each bit is set to 0 and how [closed]
In Wiping a Hard Drive With DD, the author said:
Due to the way hard drives are made it is often possible to determine what was written beneath the most current write operation. If you write the ...
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