Sponsored Links

Secure Erase

Bob2002

ULTIMATE Member
No, not the standard hard drive wiping software - this one actually uses the drive's built in secure erase commands. From the blog entry -

...
So what’s the magic?
Something called Secure Erase, a set of commands embedded in most ATA drives built since 2001. If this is so wonderful, why haven’t you heard of it before? Because it’s been disabled by most motherboard BIOSes.

Secure Erase is a loaded gun aimed right at all your data. And Murphy’s Law is still in force. But hey, if you’re smart enough to read Storage Bits, you’re smart enough to not play with Secure Erase until you need to.

How does Secure Erase work?
Secure Erase overwrites every single track on the hard drive. That includes the data on “bad blocks”, the data left at the end of partly overwritten blocks, directories, everything. There is no data recovery from Secure Erase.

Says who?
The National Security Agency, for one. And the National Institute for Standards and Testing (NIST), who give it a higher security rating than external block overwrite software that you’d have to buy. Update: There is an open source external block overwrite utility called Boot and Nuke that is free.

Secure Erase is approved for complying with the legal requirements noted above.

...

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=129

The secure erase utility can be found here - http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/Hughes/subpgset.htm . I haven't read all the comments posted to the blog (unfortunately I found this on Digg and the majority of Digg posters are idiots); you may or may not want to read them ... :hrmph:
 
Im having to use Killdisk at the moment. 2 days to wipe an 80gb drive!

Ive got 17 drives to do, Im sure people can do the math :hrmph:
 
If the drives were bought from 2001 onwards it might be worth a shot with Secure Erase, someone posted re Boot & Nuke (software wiper) -

I guess in your rush to defend what you've used you overlooked a few key points:

* Boot & Nuke is an external disk wiper and will, for instance, ignore remapped block
* Boot & Nuke is not NIST certified per NIST 800-88 to meet legal requirements, nor could it be, since it is an external disk wiper
* Secure Erase is faster and allows you to erase multiple disks in parallel since it is the disk doing the work, not the CPU
 
Sponsored Links
Thanks, but sadly many are not. Its old stuff that may well appear on ebay at some point (2 or 3 weeks in the future).
 
I use a sledge hammer, although to date it's only been needed for Maxtor HD's and is usually done out of rage :D .
 
Well hammer would be preferred, but theres nothing wrong with most of them, and I hate wasting stuff, so they will probably go on sale once the sensitive data has gone.
 
Sponsored Links
Ah! finally a 'secure' eraser that should actually do the job properly by deleting the controller managed defective sectors too. Although I see you have a suitable bios and a drive that is not too old :shrug:

I've kept my old drives so far, I've still got a 20meg one in an amiga 590 somewhere :laugh: you never know I might want an old data file off of them some day :laugh: When I do get rid of them I'll probably introduce them to my 28lb sledgehammer.
 
well dban wipes my 80gb drive in a couple of hours although using the quickest setting and a few passes, i guess for military strength you really need to go for days :/

you could alternatively drive a nail through the disk but i only did that once on a very old and redundant disk, even old hard drives which hold around 14gb are still worth reusing (like i am)

Quoting from http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/erasehd.html: "Heating a hard drive past the Curie point (the point at which metal loses its magnetic properties) and melting it into **** are the only sure ways never to recover what once was on there." :)
 
Quoting from http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/erasehd.html : "Heating a hard drive past the Curie point (the point at which metal loses its magnetic properties) and melting it into **** are the only sure ways never to recover what once was on there."

Many times when I've seen threads about hard drive erasure people post that it's just about impossible and physical destruction is the only answer. Personally, I don't believe a word of it. After using decent software erasure (or now it seems hardware), all anyone is going to find with their super duper microscope is gibberish (I seem to remember an article that basically implied that a single pass erasure would still leave some data recoverable, under special circumstances, but recovery after multiple passes was pointless). The Internet would be awash with stories if the NSA or some other organisation could recover properly erased hard drives - I don't believe it's possible. :shrug:
 
Top
Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Vodafone UK ISP Logo
Vodafone £24.00 - 26.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
NOW UK ISP Logo
NOW £24.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £25.99
145Mbps
Gift: £50 Reward Card
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £17.00
200Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £22.99
132Mbps
Gift: None
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Youfibre UK ISP Logo
Youfibre £23.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Sponsored Links
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (6028)
  2. BT (3639)
  3. Politics (2721)
  4. Business (2440)
  5. Openreach (2405)
  6. Building Digital UK (2330)
  7. Mobile Broadband (2146)
  8. FTTC (2083)
  9. Statistics (1902)
  10. 4G (1816)
  11. Virgin Media (1764)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1582)
  13. Fibre Optic (1467)
  14. Wireless Internet (1462)
  15. 5G (1407)
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms  ,  Privacy and Cookie Policy  ,  Links  ,  Website Rules