Software to delete hard drive

[Leenie]

Does anyone know of a free and easy to use software that would completely delete everything including the OS from a harddrive? I'm asking because when we decide to get rid of old pc's we auction them off, but they need to be completely "blank". Thanks.

Colleen Gayle Lane
Milton Public Library

 

[gbaughma]

You can FDISK/Format the drive, which will erase it for the "normal user".

If you have any personal information on there, then you need to do a DOD wipe. I have an external drive duplicator that does that with hardware; pull the drive out, plug it into this thing, hit "DOD Wipe", and it wipes it completely.

However, if you google for a DOD Wipe, you get this;

http://www.auburn.edu/oit/it_policies/edd_dod_compliant_apps.php

Hope this helps!


Just my 2¢

"What the captain doesn't realize is that we've secretly exchanged his dilithium crystals for new Folger's Crystals." -- My Sister
--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[ArizonaGeek]

I use a program called Kill Disk by @ctive software its not free but I will say it has been the best $30 I ever spent for software. It will do beyond DOD wipes for your hard drive. Just boot to the disk and select the type of wipe you want to do and away you go.

A month ago or so someone posted Darik's Boot and Nuke as a free alternative to my Kill Disk, I've never used it so all I can say is, it's free so it cant hurt to give it a try.

Cheers
Rob

 

[edfair]

If you identify the drive manufacturer you can usually download their utility disk which generally has a zero fill utility. That does a total wipe back to as shipped.

I've found it well worth the storage space to keep a disk from every manufacturer.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[Leenie]

In the past we have been formatting the disk but were told that there are smartypants out there who can undo the format. Darik's boot and nuke sounds like it might be just what we're looking for. Thanks.

Colleen Gayle Lane
Milton Public Library

 

[linney]

Some weird and wonderful suggestions in this old thread.

Format THOROUGHLY
thread779-601114

 

[SpiderElls82]

The best hdd wiping program I've come across is Derek's Boot and Nuke (DBAN). You can find it at the link below. In order to write the floppy ISO to disk, you'll have to download RawWrite. Both programs are free and work very well. DBAN uses DOD standard for disk writing. I've never had a problem with it, and I've used it very often.

Link to DBAN Disk Wiping Software:

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Link to RawWrite ISO Writer:

http://www.chrysocome.net/rawwrite

 

[vacunita]

I have a very old version of Western Digital's drive checking tool. It will also write zeros to the entire drive, and doesn't discriminate amongst brands.

Hopefully the newer versions do the same.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[Rick998]

I understand there are utilities around that can/will un-format drives or can/will retrieve information from formatted drives.

Multiple format/zero write utils can prevent data recovery but become increasingly slower as hard disk size increases.

One approach may be to securely wipe just one hard disk (using a utility like 'Active@ Kill Disk'?) then to use another utility like Norton/Symantec Ghost to clone it to other hard disks you want to wipe.

 

[strongm]

That won't work - it is the repeated (over)writing of (various specific) patterns that eliminates traces of previous data. Ghosting a cleaned disk to another disk won't have the same effect

 

[Grenage]

Quite so, it's all to do with the way the data is magnetically stored. You need the continual passes to truly erase the data. There is no shortcut.

If you're extremely paranoid, physically destroy the disks.

Carlsberg don't run I.T departments, but if they did they'd probably be more fun.

 

[Leenie]

Well we want to sell these pc's afterwards so we don't want to destroy the disks. We do that once they don't sell and we need to throw them out. I think we'll give DBAN a try for now. Thank you all for your suggestions.

Colleen Gayle Lane
Milton Public Library