Thoroughly Cleaning A Hard Drive

Norge

Hello,

It's been a while since I've been around SM but I've been reading a bit more lately and couldn't think of a better place to come for my question.

Currently I am a programmer analyst for a company and pretty much serve as the IT department. We have some old computers (Pentium II era) that we are going to give away to the American Legion and I have been asked to make sure the hard drives are clean before we send the computers away.

I would like to know if anyone has a suggestion for some software I could use to do a thorough cleaning of the hard drives. This would preferably be something I could download for free and create a floppy boot disk with. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Norge

QCH

!!!~NORGE~!!! You're back!!!!

As for your question... I personally do not use this but almost every other division uses it... http://www.killdisk.com/

If your company buys the professional version, it will do US Department of Defense 5220.22 M compliant erasures. It's $30 buck.... cheap for what it does...

primesuspect

Second the vote for killdisk. I used this for a customer just about a year ago - the same situation; they were giving old computers to charity but had to ensure thorough drive erasure.

Norge

Thanks a lot for the information. Will the free version do a good enough job or would you suggest I try to talk the company into purchasing the full version? Judging by the website it sounds like it would do a decent enough job.

I'm not entirely sure what US Department of Defense 5220.22 M means but it definitly sounds cool. Just as long as some guys in black suits don't show up at my front door and bust out my knee caps with a crowbar.

Adam

Leonardo

I'm not entirely sure what US Department of Defense 5220.22 M means but it definitly sounds cool.

5220.22 - absolutely, positively, without questions, no reservations, impossible to reconstruct, extract, or restore data, or even get a friggin' clue what the original data might have been! That explain it? :bigggrin:

Norge

Leonardo wrote:

5220.22 - absolutely, positively, without questions, no reservations, impossible to reconstruct, extract, or restore data, or even get a friggin' clue what the original data might have been! That explain it? :bigggrin:

So that means it's really good right?

Norge

Leonardo

I see we've connected, Norge.

WELCOME back! Don't go away again, OK?

QCH

You and SM-LAN'07... nuff said.

Norge

I don't even know if I'd have any games to play at a LAN anymore. World of Warcraft has been about the only game I've played for the past two years. lol. Of course are many games even played at the LAN anymore? I heard an interesting story involving duct tape and Psudonym. Aranyic has been talking about going to LAN'07. I'll have to give it some thought.

Back to the Kill Disk thing for a minute, I've downloaded and attempted to run the free version already. The only option I had was to do one pass doing zero fill over all of the data. That sounds pretty swanky but would that be secure enough? Considering my managers wanted me to just do a simple format I think it would be but I want to make sure I am making the right move. Should I go ahead and push for the full version so I can get the department-of-defense-ultra-super-cool-break-your-legs-if-you-even-attempt-to-retrieve-the-data-version?

Norge

QCH

I would push them since it's their data... it's $30. $30 goes a long way to easing their minds that the data is truly GONE.

Leonardo

The single pass would be good enough if you were selling the drive to a casual user at a flee market. If the data is important enough, government sensitive data, or industrial technology or business secrets, I'd feel better with something else, especially if the hard drives are given/sold to someone might have a competitive interest with your company.

Norge

Thanks for all of the advice. I think I'll try to push for the full version to make sure we get rid of everything. Better safe than sorry and for $30 I don't think you can go wrong.

Norge

drasnor

At work we use a handheld tape eraser for everything. I have no idea how well it actually works at erasing data but it does pull the drive off the table and shake it vigorously (60Hz). Very satisfying, just don't hold it near your pocket .

-drasnor

-Mac-

Derek's boot and nuke if you guys havent heard of it omg ur missing out! this is bloody amazing i dont know why the government hast blocked it! its a one very small dos like program that u put on a floppy/cd/dvd and then when u restart u pick from ur amazing options like simple 1round wipes to department of defense standard text book procedure wipes for electronic data or royal Canadian mounted police style or high tech brainstorm's styles that are in over the top techy publishings all this crazy **** to replace every bite in 0's or in 1's or 0's and 1's or each with random 1's and 0's etc etc x 100+ rounds its some heavy **** u can make it so clean that it will take a month to wipe complete if u so wished it. i forget all the specs exactly but google it yo its bloody amazing , i think the only thing better then using this is to use this then swipe an electrical magnet across ur comp which would of coarse render everything unusable forever which is not what u want

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

-Mac-

oh i forgot to mention its FREE

Leonardo

It works just as advertised. Don't even think of using it though, if you have ANY data on ANY hard disk in your computer that you wish to see again. If you run it, only have the drive you want wiped connected.

shwaip

I like windex. Gotta have the streak-free shine.