Windows 7 - Erasing data from harddrive

Asked By Fred

28-Aug-09 02:31 PM

Hello,
I am looking for the recommendation of utilty erasing data from
harddrive.
I need the utilty which:
1. Will NOT stop on errors (disk write errors) but it will continue until
all disk is done
or
2. Will allow me to choose sectors to overwrite.
Thanks,
Fred

28-Aug-09 02:55 PM

Did you already try DBAN?  http://www.dban.org/download

Brgds

Oliver

28-Aug-09 03:13 PM

I tried now. It is not good.
Not only does not allow me to select clusters but it does not see my hard
drive at all!
(Partitions were removed by Western Digital utility software)
Fred

28-Aug-09 03:23 PM

if the partitions were removed so was the data

28-Aug-09 03:32 PM

not true at all

28-Aug-09 03:57 PM

Check the manufacturer's website and see if it has a utility for
completely erasing the drive.

28-Aug-09 05:08 PM

I use ERASER which is a boot CD & takes 8 - 72 hours to government wipe hard
drives

--
SPAMCOP User

28-Aug-09 05:13 PM

It does.
But unfortunately,  writing "0" stops on the first writing error and on any
consecutive error asking me if I want to continue.
I need to bypass that message step, and continue automatically regardless of
errors.
Fred

28-Aug-09 06:38 PM

Download a trial version from here:

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/download/drivecleanser/

hth

28-Aug-09 08:13 PM

Does it allow you to select sectors or will it not stop on errors?

28-Aug-09 09:28 PM

SecureErase uses a disk erase command in the drive command set.

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

*******

The use of dd_rescue is suggested here. dd_rescue is a version of
dd (Unix Disk Dump) that works around storage devices having errors.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Damaged_Hard_Disk

I downloaded the Diaz version from here. A very small file, something
you would  build in Linux.

http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/ddrescue/ddrescue-1.8.tar.bz2

This is a comment from the documentation file of that GNU dd_rescue,
in the ddrescue.info file.


Wipe only the good sectors, leaving the bad sectors alone.
This way, the drive will still test bad (i.e., with unreadable sectors).
This is the fastest way of wiping a failing drive, and is specially
useful when sending the drive back to the manufacturer for warranty
replacement.

ddrescue --fill=+ /dev/zero bad_drive logfile"

So potentially, that is another method to do it.

dd_rescue is also a potential way of verifying the erasure. You
could wipe the drive with zeros first, then attempt data recovery
with dd_rescue in the forward direction, and scan the resulting
output for non-zero data. That would tell you whether any readable
sectors remained.

Any apparent issue with any data erasure method, is the Host Protected
Area. Any disk erasing solutions I have seen, make no promises that they
can properly deal with an HPA. So extra care must be exercised in that
case. Detection of HPA is mentioned here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_protected_area

I have not tried any of the above. Good luck.

Paul

11-Sep-09 02:13 AM

And the really stupid thing is that in the US, an eraser program is
considered illegal by non computer literate judges!
After all, if you have such a program, it is assumed that you have it for an
illegal purpose, such as maintaining your rights to privacy and security of
your personal papers, etc. (A right that the government has chipped away at
for decades.)

11-Sep-09 11:57 AM

Citation?

11-Sep-09 12:30 PM

What Daave said.

12-Sep-09 01:24 PM

There is no citation because the claim if patently wrong. There are
hundreds, if not thousands, of delete/wipe/overwrite/etc. programs
available on the 'net.
Wherever the information came from is incorrect unless the machine
is under a current legal order, in which case it would be confiscated.
I suspect something is missing from the translation.

Twayne`

12-Sep-09 01:40 PM

Something being incorrect does not keep it from having a source to be cited
from.  ;-)

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

13-Sep-09 03:16 PM

Yeahhhh, technically that is true and you are right.  "Citation" in that
context just seemed to give some sort of credit where I do not consider
the source of bad information as being worthy of any kind of credit,
just in case someone misread it.  My whole sentence probably should not
even have been written there.

Cheers,

Twayne`

12-Jan-10 05:59 PM

Bonjour,
je viens de m'inscrire sur ce forum, je suis donc nouveau et cherche a
trouver et partager des infos sur le sujet.
Je commence a eplucher le forum et je pense y poser mes valises un
petit moment.
à bientot

ps: si vous aimez le poker vous pouvez me retrouvez sur ce site avec en
prime un bonus de 150€ de votre premiere mise :

'150 euros de bonus' (http://tinyurl.com/y9lbcwg)


--
chrisdenante
Posted via http://www.vistaheads.com