Completely format a hard drive?

[tekkieman]

If you are really that keen to destroy the information, then total physical annihilation of the drive is a must. I can't imagine what sort of data would warrant that sort of action.

Cobra

You might ask Cap, Northcat, or TGPO! :P

Sorry. Just to keep this on topic, you are, of course, correct.

[Cobra]

You might ask Cap, Northcat, or TGPO! :P

I would rather not.

[gmatov]

" Important drive information (servo, sector layout, and defect management, etc.) is stored in the low-level format at the factory. This information is designed to last the life of the drive and therefore it is not possible to low level the drive outside the factory. Although some drive manufactures and BIOS provided so-called "low level format utilities", they actually perform a write-read verify of the drive’s user data sectors, and do not actually perform a low-level format. In the event of a corrupted master boot record or boot block virus, use FDISK /MBR command to restore the master boot record. If you need to low level format your hard drive then check the drive manufacturer and download such an utility from its website. Every drive manufacturer provides just such a utility. Below is a list of hard drive manufacturers with a links to low level format utilities."

ie, Low level format is not for you, regardless what the experts say.

There is no way, short of total destruction,that you can prevent anyone with access to your hard drive, from recovering any incriminating or embarrassing data on it.

The US Gov has a write 7 times scheme for a total obliteration. I would assume they could recover from that.

Best you should DL or copy DVDs or something that takes a whole bunch of space, delete and do it again, repeatedly,write, overwrite, and overwrite again, and hope for the best.

Then again, you could just cut and paste to a CD orDVD and burn the disk in a fire, and be comfortable thinking that "cut" really means the files have been obliterated.

At least you'd be happy thinking your boyfriend/girlfriend could never see you in a bad light.

Cheers,

George

[glockjs]

you got two options...

!. low level format like everybody else said...which the last time took me over a day...yes over 24 hours....all depends on the size of the drive and the manu...

2. write over the info...which there are some proggy's out there that do this specific thing and take way less time...somebody give me a link

[JSB]

you got two options...

!. low level format like everybody else said...which the last time took me over a day...yes over 24 hours....all depends on the size of the drive and the manu...

2. write over the info...which there are some proggy's out there that do this specific thing and take way less time...somebody give me a link

http://www.killdisk.com/ ... runs in DOS off a floppy (or bottable cd with a ram drive)

Active@ KillDisk conforms to US Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DoD 5220.22-M. The most secure Gutmann's data destruction method is also implemented. You can be sure that once you clean up with Active@ KillDisk, sensitive information is purged out forever.

Hey,

How do you format a hard drive ''COMPLETELY''

So no-one can ever retrieve anything that was on the hard drive...

Thanks in advance

Start by drilling holes throught the hard drive(platters) then insiterate it.

I know for a fact that a large shipping company (starts with F and ends with EX) drills holes throught their laptop drives. Then they dispose of them.

JSB

I think he wants to reuse the HD afterwards.

Let's limit the discussion to helpful information, OK?

Sorry Capmaster.... werewolf_02 said nothing about reuse his original post... I hope my lastest info is helpful.

JSB

[werewolf_02]

Hey,

Staganos security suite can do that glockjs.
http://www.steganos.com/?product=sss7&layout=web2005&language=en


If I:

Low level format
Fill up my hard drive
Low level format
Fill up my hard drive
Low level format
Use computer like normal

Then that will be fine right?
Yes, it will take a long time...


Also, does low level formatting hard drives slow them down?
Or does it not matter at all?

[bazooka]

An unconditional format does the same thing.

It will write all ones to the drive then write over the ones with zero's then write over the zero's with ones.

[werewolf_02]

''Western Digital provides software utilities that can erase all the data on a hard drive. Writing zeros to a drive is recommended any time an operating system is to be reinstalled on a boot drive or whenever a blank drive is desired. ''

Does this only write zeros? Or will it write the ones as well.

Some other questions on my other post needing answered if poss ^^

[bazooka]

Hey,

Staganos security suite can do that glockjs.
http://www.steganos.com/?product=sss7&layout=web2005&language=en


If I:

Low level format
Fill up my hard drive
Low level format
Fill up my hard drive
Low level format
Use computer like normal

Then that will be fine right?
Yes, it will take a long time...


Also, does low level formatting hard drives slow them down?
Or does it not matter at all?

It will be fine. No it will not slow down the drive.

[Skoorb]

I think people can still get it back with specialist knowledge, programs and probably equipment, even after a low-level format. They'd have to be the police though.

A low-level format should suffice for domestic purposes.

A 160GB drive will take a few hours to low-level format.

If you are really that keen to destroy the information, then total physical annihilation of the drive is a must. I can't imagine what sort of data would warrant that sort of action.

Cobra

Surely a low level format followed by ultimately using a software application like hard disk scrubber will totally make the information unavailable? I mean heck, a 120 gb HD can hold 120 gb. If you write it with 120 gb of junk it can't somehow remember what you used to have on there...

[Josef K]

Surely a low level format followed by ultimately using a software application like hard disk scrubber will totally make the information unavailable? I mean heck, a 120 gb HD can hold 120 gb. If you write it with 120 gb of junk it can't somehow remember what you used to have on there...

It will take time but it can be done.

The only technology possibly capable of overcoming this problem is Magnetic Force Microscope (MFM) photography, since this technique does not require the platter to spin. However, MFM requires scanning the whole surface of the platter. The MFM moves from region to region, each region yielding a picture. This alone will take several months. Then all these pictures must be stitched together. A 20GB hard drive consists of 160,000,000,000 bits, probably 300,000,000,000 bits including overhead. Each bit is represented by a magnetic flux change. A picture displaying this flux change will probably use 100 bytes, thus inflating each bit by factor 1000. You will have to analyze the amount of 40 Tera byte of data. It is unknown if this technology is in use. It certainly is not "commercially available and affordable" because a data recovery would cost 100,000s of Dollars.

Given the right equipment, maybe not all but some data can be recovered by people with the knowledge and, more importantly, the expensive equipment. You'll have to think governments here and why would they want your data back? The average home user will not have the knowledge or software tools to accomplish this. The advanced user/IT tech may have the software tools and some knowledge/experience but they won't have the machines and the clean room to do much beyond that. Why do I say clean room? You'd have to dismantle the drive completely and scan all the platters one by one.

So, unless you have top secret data that a foreign (or home) government really, really wants, then just wipe it and stop worrying. A low level format is way more than you'd need in most cases.

[Skoorb]

Surely a low level format followed by ultimately using a software application like hard disk scrubber will totally make the information unavailable? I mean heck, a 120 gb HD can hold 120 gb. If you write it with 120 gb of junk it can't somehow remember what you used to have on there...

It will take time but it can be done.

The only technology possibly capable of overcoming this problem is Magnetic Force Microscope (MFM) photography, since this technique does not require the platter to spin. However, MFM requires scanning the whole surface of the platter. The MFM moves from region to region, each region yielding a picture. This alone will take several months. Then all these pictures must be stitched together. A 20GB hard drive consists of 160,000,000,000 bits, probably 300,000,000,000 bits including overhead. Each bit is represented by a magnetic flux change. A picture displaying this flux change will probably use 100 bytes, thus inflating each bit by factor 1000. You will have to analyze the amount of 40 Tera byte of data. It is unknown if this technology is in use. It certainly is not "commercially available and affordable" because a data recovery would cost 100,000s of Dollars.

Given the right equipment, maybe not all but some data can be recovered by people with the knowledge and, more importantly, the expensive equipment. You'll have to think governments here and why would they want your data back? The average home user will not have the knowledge or software tools to accomplish this. The advanced user/IT tech may have the software tools and some knowledge/experience but they won't have the machines and the clean room to do much beyond that. Why do I say clean room? You'd have to dismantle the drive completely and scan all the platters one by one.

So, unless you have top secret data that a foreign (or home) government really, really wants, then just wipe it and stop worrying. A low level format is way more than you'd need in most cases.

I still can't figure out how if you have, for instance, 60 gb of info and you then delete it, then write 120 gb of brand new full info, on the 120 gb drive, that 60 gb is still hidden anywhere. But I won't argue it, because I don't know much.

Reading that article it seems that the best way to clean the drive is to drop it, then start it, so that the heads ruin the drive, then heat it up past 770 C.

Installing a new OS easily overwrites 2 GB.

All files that were once located in these 2GB will be irrevocably lost.

That seems to imply that if you write over a section of that disk with new info, that old info is gone forever and will never be recoverable.

[werewolf_02]

Thanks for all the replys

''Western Digital provides software utilities that can erase all the data on a hard drive. Writing zeros to a drive is recommended any time an operating system is to be reinstalled on a boot drive or whenever a blank drive is desired. ''

^^ This is what it says on the Western Digital site

Will it still write the ones like bazooka said?

[Josef K]

Installing a new OS easily overwrites 2 GB.

All files that were once located in these 2GB will be irrevocably lost.

That seems to imply that if you write over a section of that disk with new info, that old info is gone forever and will never be recoverable.

Put it this way:

If NASA can pick up a satellite/probe signal that is a billionth the strength of a transmission using the power only of a watch battery (I watched Discovery channel once...) from millions of miles into space - could not specialists recover data using the tiniest fragment of magnetism, using specialised techniques with specialised equipment, even if it's been overwritten several times (or 'securely' wiped)?

I remember several years ago when I used to be more into the security stuff (PGP, encrypted virtual drives, etc.) I read up a lot on this stuff. Shame I don't have the good links anymore.

[Shard92]

Yes Cobra is correct. with the proper knowledge/equipment it could be recoverered. There are various forensics that can be done to hard drives to recover stuff but if you do a low level that should take care of it for the most part. The other option there are utilities to "destroy" data on a hard drive but they do take some time... To be 100% sure that absolutely nothing can be recovered you need to incinerate the drive..... not an option if you want to reuse it. Also the process of reusing the drive helps destroy any possibility of recovering anything as well....

[Skoorb]

Installing a new OS easily overwrites 2 GB.

All files that were once located in these 2GB will be irrevocably lost.

That seems to imply that if you write over a section of that disk with new info, that old info is gone forever and will never be recoverable.

Put it this way:

If NASA can pick up a satellite/probe signal that is a billionth the strength of a transmission using the power only of a watch battery (I watched Discovery channel once...) from millions of miles into space - could not specialists recover data using the tiniest fragment of magnetism, using specialised techniques with specialised equipment, even if it's been overwritten several times (or 'securely' wiped)?

I remember several years ago when I used to be more into the security stuff (PGP, encrypted virtual drives, etc.) I read up a lot on this stuff. Shame I don't have the good links anymore.

Isn't that kind of like saying that since we can get to the moon, it shouldn't be a problem for somebody to do a 20 foot vertical jump? I'm not denying that it can't be done, but I'd like to know how somebody can get information on a hardrive, after that information has been not only deleted, but all parts of the hard drive used to store it overwritten, and now consisting of new information. I know that some recommend multiple scrubbings; I just don't see how one wouldn't be enough!

[Josef K]

Isn't that kind of like saying that since we can get to the moon, it shouldn't be a problem for somebody to do a 20 foot vertical jump?

I get that you're joking but really we're talking about technology here. We humans cannot advance ourselves much beyond what evolution will allow us but our brains can make huge leaps with electronics and machinery. We all remember watching as the next new thing (VHS, CDs, DVDs, etc.) came and went. Technology is progressing so fast that each new advance is here before the 'old' one has barely had time to take hold (HD-DVD, Blu-Ray...).

Imagine if you had unlimited government funds or customers who say 'money is no object if you can get my files back for me'.

I'm not denying that it can't be done, but I'd like to know how somebody can get information on a hardrive, after that information has been not only deleted, but all parts of the hard drive used to store it overwritten, and now consisting of new information. I know that some recommend multiple scrubbings; I just don't see how one wouldn't be enough!

Well I'm curious to see if I can find this information again but all I've come up with so far is this rather eloquent reply through Google groups.

Class 3 attacks (such as with magnetic force microscopy), are generally considered able to penetrate any software countermeasures, including _any_ kind of overwriting. These "cleanroom attacks" are very costly techniques to use to recover the complete image-as-it-used-to-be of an overwritten multi-gigabyte disk, as opposed to a few specifically targeted bytes.

Scary stuff. The short answer is just to not download any porn or at least only to a ram drive... Even if you used an encrypted virtual drive you'd probably then be asked for the key or face jail for contempt of court.

[Skoorb]

Isn't that kind of like saying that since we can get to the moon, it shouldn't be a problem for somebody to do a 20 foot vertical jump?

I get that you're joking but really we're talking about technology here. We humans cannot advance ourselves much beyond what evolution will allow us but our brains can make huge leaps with electronics and machinery. We all remember watching as the next new thing (VHS, CDs, DVDs, etc.) came and went. Technology is progressing so fast that each new advance is here before the 'old' one has barely had time to take hold (HD-DVD, Blu-Ray...).

Imagine if you had unlimited government funds or customers who say 'money is no object if you can get my files back for me'.

I'm not denying that it can't be done, but I'd like to know how somebody can get information on a hardrive, after that information has been not only deleted, but all parts of the hard drive used to store it overwritten, and now consisting of new information. I know that some recommend multiple scrubbings; I just don't see how one wouldn't be enough!

Well I'm curious to see if I can find this information again but all I've come up with so far is this rather eloquent reply through Google groups.

Class 3 attacks (such as with magnetic force microscopy), are generally considered able to penetrate any software countermeasures, including _any_ kind of overwriting. These "cleanroom attacks" are very costly techniques to use to recover the complete image-as-it-used-to-be of an overwritten multi-gigabyte disk, as opposed to a few specifically targeted bytes.

Scary stuff. The short answer is just to not download any porn or at least only to a ram drive... Even if you used an encrypted virtual drive you'd probably then be asked for the key or face jail for contempt of court.

Just say you forgot the darn password!

I wonder how much info you could squeeze onto a 100 gig harddrive if you put it on there, then killed it and put more on it and you maxed out all recovery techniques to get the old stuff...