Formatting a hard drive for sale

[Robbie G]

Is there a cheap easy secure way to remove HDD data before selling it. There are things like CVs and banking documents I need to remove before doing it. I expect the inevitable predictable jokes about porn and general filth but hopefully there'll be some useful stuff mixed in there also .

Thanks.

[Phil_P]

There are lots of free tools available, although I've not had occasion to use any:

http://www.thefreecountry.com/securi...redelete.shtml

Hope that helps

[aidanjt]

Best way to secure erase a HDD is delete everything, fill it up with random junk (say dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hdx1, with a linux livecd, where hdx1 is the hard drive node and partition number), then format.... Then your midget porn collection is safe

[mrt9888]

There is something called d ban I think its open source

[DougMcDonald]

If you simply delete the partition and reformat, which you could do via the xp install cd, you shouldn't get any issues really.

[aidanjt]

If you simply delete the partition and reformat, which you could do via the xp install cd, you shouldn't get any issues really.

A Format only relays the filesystem on the partition, it doesn't actually delete the data, even basic recovery tools can extract the data.

[crazy]

There is something called d ban I think its open source

here it is
http://dban.sourceforge.net/

[badger]

There is a disk wiping feature that's been built into hard disks for several years now, and a researcher has built a tool to access it, HDDErase:

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/Hughes/SecureErase.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=129

That's all you need. Quicker than any other software and as secure as you will get without physically destroying the drives, it's more secure than other programs such as dban because the functionality is built into the drive. You'll find it on Ultimate Boot CD, too, which also has dban.

[Defenestration]

I'd also suggest dban, which is an excellent tool. Another great tool is Terabyte Unlimited's CopyWipe http://terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php

[Lucio]

Alternatively, set it up as a RAID array, then re-start the RAID array without one of the hard drives present, should scramble everything on the drive

[Clunk]

Saw it in half.

[badass]

I'd also suggest dban, which is an excellent tool. Another great tool is Terabyte Unlimited's CopyWipe http://terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php

I've asked a forensic investigator to attempt to get any info from an HDD I had wiped using DBAN.
He couldn't get anything from it.

It does the job well

[htid]

Sorry to bring this back up but it's not TOO old a thread so I thought it would be ok. As I said in my thread in GD, I may want to get rid of my hdd and if I do indeed give it to a charity I want to wipe it with dban first. Thing is, it says "DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.". I just want to wipe an external hdd which is connected by USB, not my main hdd too. Can DBAN do this or will it just wipe my main one too?

Cheers.

[Phillikon]

the quickest way to destroy all the data from the drive is with Windows 95 osr2 no lower (FAT32) fdisk it and then run format /s /u using full format which you'll probably have to do anyway if its been on XP NTFS.
do this a couple of times.
As the change file system will irrevocably alter the drive structure the format afterwards will finish the job.

[Queelis]

Sorry to bring this back up but it's not TOO old a thread so I thought it would be ok. As I said in my thread in GD, I may want to get rid of my hdd and if I do indeed give it to a charity I want to wipe it with dban first. Thing is, it says "DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.". I just want to wipe an external hdd which is connected by USB, not my main hdd too. Can DBAN do this or will it just wipe my main one too?

Cheers.

I think your OS would have a thing or two to say about wiping the drive it's on, not to mention the one DBan itself is on

[Robbie G]

Thanks for bringing this one back up. I'd almost forgotten how hilarious Clunk was.