LEAVING NO TRACKS ON COMPUTER

I am aware that if your PC features a hard disk made by Seagate or Maxtor (2 of the most popular brands so there's a reasonable chance that it has) you can download the software from their manufacturer's website you then install the software onto a floppy disk or CD, reboot and choose the 'hard disk utilities' option, then select the 'Zero Fill' option, this completely and irreversably wipes ALL data from your disk including all boot sector info as it writes '0's to all parts of the drive, it takes ages as it accesses every single part of the drive and cannot be undone after. I've used a government deveoped recovery utility and to this day have not been able to recover anything using this method. Even if your hard disk is not made by these two companies you can still use the software and the format utility but support is not available from the software manufacturer

Check out http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/ and download the program Eraser, which is a free program and will erase data using the Peter Gutman standard.

So, if you're really concerned about private data being recovered, why not keep the drive and purchase a cheap hard drive to install and use the old one as a spare drive in the computer you have now. Just a thought.

I put together a clone computer with a RAID set of 2 WD HDs combined 500 gigs. I forgot to partition. I installed windows xp pro. Unable to reinstal, unable to reformat. (long story with microsoft support)

can I use Erase to delete EVERYTHING on the HD then reinstall the windows xp Pro OS??? I want to be able to partition the drives into more usable spaces.

HELP!
Vee

Is it any use to delete the unwanted files and then write enough new material to the disc to fill it up completely, thus over-writing the old files?????
andy

According to security documments and following recovery experts recommendation and workarounds:

If you delete files in Win OS the files are still there. You can recover using any basic tool if the data is not overwrited with new data.

If disk is damaged, you can recover with more special tools or with the help of special companies like www.ontrack.com

In terms of Security and high sensitivity documments, you can delete the data, overwrite with new data and the old data is still there!

You can even recover data from damaged disks!.

But, this is only required if you have sensitive data. I belive you can wipe with ZEROES and this become difficult to recover.

Peter Gutman webpage and articles explain how to use an special microscope and other magnetics artefacts to recover data even when the data has been erased or ovewrited several times.

Anyway, this is difficult!! you can read this... interesting:

http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3/asm/mbr/WIPE.html

Hi,
Ok lets say you want to use one of these programs for personal use but do not want to totally wipe the HD.
If an amature uses this how do you know what to clean and what not to clean?
Rick

For example you can do the following:

- Uninstall all software except Operating system and Basic software like winzip, adobe reader, etc
- Install Wipe & Clean
- Open Wipe a& clean and select the options to delete temporal files from windows, internet explorer, mozilla, cache, cookies, traces, etc (check everything) and clean the FREE space on the hard drive.

This only leave the data of the OS in the hard drive and no info!

you can use DOD 3 passes for high security, DOD 7 passes for super security and Peter Algorithm for hyper extreme security!

regards!

You can wipe away and all the data will be gone, but do not forget to cleanse the Registry!! That holds information and history that might be detrimental, including names and urls.

Get into the registry, use the find utility and type in names and http: or www. and rename what you find to something generic.

Registy basic information like url, shortcuts, etc are cleaned with WIPE&CLEAN. Anyway, i agree the best method will be cleaning the full disk with any secure method and install a clean OS.

If the disk have extreme confiddential data then the disk must be replaced and destroyed with chemicals.

You're defeating the purpose of a "wipe-out" pgm. in this regard. Its far better to wipe out all data, then prepare the HD for re-use by reformmating, etc. in order to reload the OS. Get rid of *all data* and then place the OS over possible data tracks of before is a plus approach. Believe me the wipe out pgms. do a through job. You can always rerun the wipeout pgm. or do X-passes. Otherwise, just deleteing and even 0/1 passes may leave some for a pro to recover, it just makes the job harder. If you're that worried about data, then remove HD and torch cut it.

tada -----Willy

You surely wouldn't use a 16 pound sledge hammer just to put a picture hanger on your wall.

The programs initially recommended such as KillDisk and DBAN are designed for wiping the contents of the entire drive. That ensures that EVERYTHING is wiped and that recovery methods will be expensive which will prevent a casual user or someone who simply gains access from recovering personal data easily.

If the reason the drive is wiped is to avoid the long arm of the law the above tools are not going to work well because the mechanical methods of data recovery making use of magnetic memory although expensive are readily accomplished.

If your concerns are for personal files you find yourself a handy dandy utility that can encrypt the files and another or possibly the same one that can securely delete the specific files you point it at.

Eraser is one and the free PowerDesk 6 ( http://www.v-com.com/product/PowerDesk_Free_Trial.html ) is another than can both encrypt and secure delete files.

I Believe writing zerous is basic and not a fully secure way to get rid of the data. At least the Pseudo random mechanism algorithm must be used if the data is sensitive.

Hard drive manufacturers have they own write zeroes utilities. When the data is really important then we need to use any DOD standard.

Writing zeros may not be up to DOD standards, but it takes some very expensive equipment to recover after a full pass. Write zeros a few times, and it really becomes impossible to recover anything because residual magnetism gets smaller each pass. A killdisk floppy, or a program from a drive manufacturer can usually accomplish this, and you can say "good enough" for a home computer. Face it, who's going to pull it out and spend many thousands of dollars just to see if there's something on joe schmoe's disk?

i agree with you. Several ZERO writes to the hard disk make the thing more difficult for recovery.

i even believe is too much if you use any DOD options, but in some cases when we are talking about very sensitive info, you can use DOD3 (with one wipe, the wipe mechanism write 3 times) and is better than writing ZEROES.

you can use a shareware utility like WIPEANDCLEAN and make your wipe in 5 - 7 hours.

For basic cleaning (home pc) a one - two ZERO pass is enough.

In my actual job i need to clean at least with DOD7 passes or Gutman35 passes because this is extremely high sensitive data.

thanks for the reply

Get one of those heavy-duty magnets... the ones that will lift 200#'s... (about $12.95 or so)...
and keep running it over the harddrive...
That should do it...

by melting it into oblivion with a PLASMA TORCH!

I believe fdisk and format leave most of the data on disk. And IDE drivers cannot be LOW LEVEL FORMATTED. This was only performed on the old MFM and old tech disks.

And in the internet you can find several free wiping utilities.

You can check here:

http://www.sofotex.com/download/PC_Utilities/Disk_Tools/

Symantec wipe tools are good and enough most of the cases. But 00, FF and Random writes leave some options to recovery experts.

Even Symantec call that a Government wipe, this is not an standard at all. In order to accomplish with an standard of the Department of Deffense the deleted data must be wiped 3 or 7 times. But the information cannot be 00 or FF or any random data. The data recorder is an special algorithm to avoid magnetic read of downgrade layers in the disks or in the inter-tracks.

But i?m talking about sensitive docs, in a personal field this is not always required. A 00 wipe don?t take too much time and is ok most of the cases.

Sometimes i need to delete using any of the DOD standards because we need to return hard drives and laptops to a company and the data must be unrecoverable. Most of the cases i swap hard drives but this sometimes is not allowed, so i use dod3 or dod7. IN some cases i use peter gutman wipe mode, but this is extreme and can take 4 days for a 40gb hard drive.

WOW! 4 days to wipe a 40 g HD.
What if you need sectors wiped in minutes and unrecouverable.

In minutes is impossible to wipe the data on a disk without leaving traces... the best you can do is a ZERO wipe operation, this can take 1~4 hours for a 60GB disk and the data will be recoverable with some $$ and expertise.

The best solution in your case is replacing the Hard drive with a new one, recover from an OS image and destroy the old Hard Disk. To destroy you need to destroy all labels & circuits (burning) and disk (with chemicals).

Sometimes i need to return disk to clients and we need to return the disk with all data wiped. The only way to be "secure" on this is any DOD or PETER alghoritm for a weekend.