Grant Taylor wrote:

On 1/13/19 10:28 AM, Kirk Bubul wrote:
Question: Is here a good free wipe program that would wipe these external
drives in less than a workday? Once wiped, I will throw these old drives
away unless someone speaks up and will pay for the shipping charges to
get them from me to them.

Thanks in advance for your help.

I think there are some utilities that can give the drive a command to
write zeros (or otherwise) erase itself. Hopefully you can give the
drive the command and then otherwise ignore it for a while and then
check it's status later. The key being the drive does the erasing, not
your computer over the slower USB 2.0 interface.

It's not DoD grade erasure (I digress), but it will prevent casual users
from accessing the data.

https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-secure-erase-2626004

I remember the HDDerase program (to issue the Secure Erase command
directly to the ATA drive) but it is no longer available (get "page not
found" at http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml). While
there are some generic tools to do a Secure Erase, maybe you're expected
to now use a utility from the drive manufacturer.

https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebas...ID=1211#windlg

WDC has an erase function in their Data Lifeguard software; however,
when I read its instructions, it seems it does a logical erase (because
it is showing progress) rather than issuing a Secure Erase (which
doesn't need any monitoring although I suppose that would be handy to
inform the user when the Secure Erase got completed). Seagate has their
SeaTools and Samsung has their Magician but they aren't clear if they
issue the Secure Erase command or perform a logical erase where software
is required to perform each write.

If you are using whole-disk encryption, you don't have to erase at all.
No one else is going to have the passphrase to unlock (decrypt) the
drive. For example:

https://www.seagate.com/tech-insight...ive-master-ti/
(all it does is change the encryption key [to an unknown random value]
so neither you nor anyone else can decrypt the drive)

A Secure Erase is still going to be slow. It still takes time to write
zero bits everywhere on the disk. It only does a one-pass write of
zeros. While not the greatest method for secure erase (one pass of
zeros, one pass of ones, and then a pass of random bits is better),
there is definitely no reason to use the insane Gutmann method which
applied only to the ancient RLL drives and not to today's drive.

A set of precision torx screwdrivers, dismantling the HDD and removing
the platters, and grinding the platters will take a hell of lot less
time than a logical wipe or using Secure Erase.