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#1
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Secure Erase My Hard Drive?
I am looking for a small program to write, say, zeroes over my entire
hard drive so as to render it unrestorable before I release it. I know I could smash it or melt it, but I want to give it to someone to use in their machine. I have looked at a few program demos offered through Google, but they all require purchase before they will do anything. Their demos merely show that they can do it. Is there a freeware or shareware version of 'secure erase' or 'write zeroes' program available? Thanks -GECKO |
#2
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Secure Erase My Hard Drive?
gecko wrote:
I am looking for a small program to write, say, zeroes over my entire hard drive so as to render it unrestorable before I release it. I know I could smash it or melt it, but I want to give it to someone to use in their machine. I have looked at a few program demos offered through Google, but they all require purchase before they will do anything. Their demos merely show that they can do it. Is there a freeware or shareware version of 'secure erase' or 'write zeroes' program available? Thanks -GECKO Simple, free, and very effective: http://www.dban.org/ -- John McGaw [Knoxville, TN, USA] http://johnmcgaw.com |
#3
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Secure Erase My Hard Drive?
On Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:37:07 GMT, gecko
wrote: I am looking for a small program to write, say, zeroes over my entire hard drive so as to render it unrestorable before I release it. I know I could smash it or melt it, but I want to give it to someone to use in their machine. I have looked at a few program demos offered through Google, but they all require purchase before they will do anything. Their demos merely show that they can do it. Is there a freeware or shareware version of 'secure erase' or 'write zeroes' program available? Thanks -GECKO If it isn't the main system (OS) drive and you'd prefer to do so in windows (which with some controllers can also be faster) then the following will do that. http://www.download.com/Eraser/3000-...-10783721.html Depending on whether there are files still or free space it defaults to quite a few overwrites, you'd probably want to set it to a smaller number of passes. For the main system (OS) drive you'd have to boot to another alternative like dban that John McGaw suggested. |
#4
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Secure Erase My Hard Drive?
gecko wrote:
I am looking for a small program to write, say, zeroes over my entire hard drive so as to render it unrestorable before I release it. I know I could smash it or melt it, but I want to give it to someone to use in their machine. I have looked at a few program demos offered through Google, but they all require purchase before they will do anything. Their demos merely show that they can do it. Is there a freeware or shareware version of 'secure erase' or 'write zeroes' program available? Thanks -GECKO why write zero's? Just take any innocent file of a few MB, rename it a, and execute a batch file containing copy /b a+a+a+a+a+a+a+a+a+a b copy /b b+b+b+b+b+b+b+b+b+b c copy /b c+c+c+c+c+c+c+c+c+c d copy /b d+d+d+d+d+d+d+d+d+d e copy /b e+e+e+e+e+e+e+e+e+e f that will be 100.000 times the first file a. That will fill up the disk, and overwrite any private data. |
#5
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Secure Erase My Hard Drive?
gecko wrote:
I am looking for a small program to write, say, zeroes over my entire hard drive so as to render it unrestorable before I release it. I know I could smash it or melt it, but I want to give it to someone to use in their machine. I have looked at a few program demos offered through Google, but they all require purchase before they will do anything. Their demos merely show that they can do it. Is there a freeware or shareware version of 'secure erase' or 'write zeroes' program available? Thanks -GECKO There is a way, apparently, to set a secure erase bit in the ATA interface. Thus, the drive itself has an internal command for erasure. The command can even be "posted", meaning each time the drive is powered up, it works on the task, and won't stop until the entire disk is covered. It doesn't respond to user input until the command is completed. Then it becomes ready for usage as a normal disk again. http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=129 http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml Paul |
#6
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Secure Erase My Hard Drive?
You are on the right track. Secure Erase is the most effective means to purge data from all data storage regions of the media surface in High Capacity ATA Spec devices produced after 2001. Rather, most hard drives present in PC's, workstations and portable computers. Be aware, that as Secure Erase is actually a technology that resides in your drives controller, what you are actually doing is activating the Secure Erase process, which in turn purges all data from your drive. Software based over write technologies differ from SE as they send multiple sequential block write commands to the drive in the form of obfuscating data, using the same write process as you would write data to the drive. The problem with this is that the embedded drive controller will not permit external write commands to access protected storage areas, and other regions where recoverable data may exist. As an example, regsions on the drive such as the Host Protected Area (HPA) will not be accessible to external processes that are not HPA aware or authorized to modify these regions. Likewise, any G-List bad block entries will have their Logical Block address removed from the list of accessible sectors, potentially leaving legacy partially written data stranded on these sectors. hence the reason that the NIST States in special report 800-88 that overwrite technologies are classified as a clear level sanitization practice, susceptible to laboratory reconstruction efforts. Whereas, Secure Erase, which is capable of accessing all data storage regions, protected or not, and is not susceptible to reconstruction. Unlike multipass overwrite technologies, SE can purge data at a rate of up to 17 Meg per 100 Gig. a 3 pass overwrite could take in the range of 12 hours, or more. The University of California San Diego's Center for Magnetic Recording Research had developed Secure Erase, and offers a piece of software that is really proof of concept. you can download it from their site. However, let me caution you, this is not for the technically inexperienced, as there are many situations that you should be aware of. 1/ you will need to know how to create a DOS boot disk and copy the software to this disk in order for it to operate. 2/ you will need to know the serial number of the target drive, if you have more than 1 drive in your system, you do not want to purget he wrong device. 3/ it will only work on drives connected to the primary IDE channel. It will not natively purge SATA. 4/ There is a reason that there is no commercial adoption of Secure Erase software, it cannot be run on many PC's due to the BIOS protecting the drive channel from potential malicious exploitation of the command. Think about it, if a malware or virus writer were to send an SE Init, your drive would be trashed before you could react. The BIOS makers have in many systems inhibited the ability to pass the SE init to the drive subsystem. 5/ Controller incompatibilities, many HPA aware drive chipsets will not let Secure Erase access the protected storage regions of hte drive including hte HPA and the DCO settings. Although the process will run with success, the HPA will be recoverable. If you are up for a bit of experimenting, and have a good technical understanding you might want to take a whack at using the CMRR software. Alternately, companies such as Ensconce Data Technologies (Google them for more info) produce appliances for purging hard drives with Secure Erase. By taking the appliance approach, EDT has made Secure Erase accessible to business, government and consumers. They have recently established a service provider network throughout North America, and may have a local service provider who could process your drive for a few bucks. Secure Erase is proven effective, and a green solution. The drive is fully operational once processed, and will have absolutely no trace of any of your legacy data. You would be able to comfortably donate or reinstall the drive without any concerns of exposing personal confidential information. Sorry for the wordy reply, but I hope this helps explain what Secure Erase is all about. If you or anyone is interested in a comprehensive guide titled 'The Best Practices for the Destruction of Digital Data' written by myself and Dr. Gordon Hughes of the CMRR, I will be glad to offer a PDF copy of this academic work (not vendor sponsored) for the asking. The guide is designed to simplify the decision making process for security professionals looking to develop responsible storage asset management policy. Please address any requests to ryk @ converge-net . com gecko;833261 Wrote: I am looking for a small program to write, say, zeroes over my entire hard drive so as to render it unrestorable before I release it. I know I could smash it or melt it, but I want to give it to someone to use in their machine. I have looked at a few program demos offered through Google, but they all require purchase before they will do anything. Their demos merely show that they can do it. Is there a freeware or shareware version of 'secure erase' or 'write zeroes' program available? Thanks -GECKO -- Ryk Edelstein |
#7
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Secure Erase My Hard Drive?
On Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:34:47 +0200, Sjouke Burry
wrote: why write zero's? Just take any innocent file of a few MB, rename it a, and execute a batch file containing copy /b a+a+a+a+a+a+a+a+a+a b copy /b b+b+b+b+b+b+b+b+b+b c copy /b c+c+c+c+c+c+c+c+c+c d copy /b d+d+d+d+d+d+d+d+d+d e copy /b e+e+e+e+e+e+e+e+e+e f that will be 100.000 times the first file a. That will fill up the disk, and overwrite any private data. Sounds like a good idea to me. Unless someone cautions me, I am going to try it. Thanks -GECKO |
#8
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Secure Erase My Hard Drive?
On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 09:24:20 GMT, gecko
wrote: On Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:34:47 +0200, Sjouke Burry wrote: why write zero's? Just take any innocent file of a few MB, rename it a, and execute a batch file containing copy /b a+a+a+a+a+a+a+a+a+a b copy /b b+b+b+b+b+b+b+b+b+b c copy /b c+c+c+c+c+c+c+c+c+c d copy /b d+d+d+d+d+d+d+d+d+d e copy /b e+e+e+e+e+e+e+e+e+e f that will be 100.000 times the first file a. That will fill up the disk, and overwrite any private data. Sounds like a good idea to me. Unless someone cautions me, I am going to try it. Thanks -GECKO For one, that's a lot slower because you're having to read the files, stop and write, then read again. Caching may make reduce the penality but contrast that with a typical wipe program that doesn't read at all. For most purposes simply overwriting with the same file will make prior data beyond the ability of others to recover, but in theory an expert given a drive with the same file written over and over could look at minute variations in the signal strength and possible reproduce the prior data (if it's only overwritten one time, two or more times makes thing a lot harder). |
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