Any free software to wipe a hard drive?

[PhoneMatt]

I am helping friend set up a new computer. He wants to donate his old computer to a school here, but wants to wipe the hard drive. Any recommendations for software, preferably free, to do this with some degree of reliability?
Thanks.
Matt

[thecoalman]

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

[redwudz]

And I would suggest a minimum of a DOD wipe. Guttman would be better, but takes a fair amount of time. With a boot drive, you will need to boot from a startup disc to get access to the drive. You can usually set that up in BIOS if needed.

And of course, a repartition, reformat, reinstall of the OS will be required to make the PC usable again.

[PhoneMatt]

Thanks, for all of the answers. My friend is donating the drive to a charity. (It is 5 years old, running ME on 64M- did I mention that it is running very slowly???) Hopefully they can get some use out of it (I do have some extra PC133 SIMMs to give them with it), if not, it can go in the trash. The HDD was the main concern. He doesn't want any information to get out, but it is also kind of useless to donate a computer with no hard drive.
Redwudz, it's interesting the you mention a Guttman wipe, because the Dban site seems to think that it is unnecessary. I'm going to keep looking around, but Dban is a good start.
Matt

[redwudz]

Guttman is likely overkill with 35 passes. DOD 3 to 7 pass should be more than enough in most cases. The DOD (Department of Defense) actually runs them through a shredder if they want to 'clean' them permanently.

[PhoneMatt]

Shred a hard drive?? Damn, that is one big ass shredder. (And no, I don't want to be under the confetti from that machine.)

[redwudz]

I couldn't find a photo of a shredder, but here's the 'before and after'.

[Video Head]

Here is a shredder

[Video Head]

Drives going through the teeth...keep fingers away!

[Video Head]

Poor man's version:

[hudsonf]

See it in action http://www.ssiworld.com/watch/watch-en.htm They make them even bigger then the ones in the videos.

[thecoalman]

Guttman is likely overkill with 35 passes. DOD 3 to 7 pass should be more than enough in most cases. .

Actually its not because its okerkill, I was reading throught the FAQ myself after I posted the link. the Gutmann method involves a large amount of passes designed for a specific type of drive which most modern drives are not. The guy who invented is even quoted on there as saying that writing a few passes of random data (DOD) would be more effective.

Q: Is the Gutmann method the best method?

A: No.

Most of the passes in the Gutmann wipe are designed to flip the bits in MFM/RLL encoded disks, which is an encoding that modern hard disks do not use.

In a followup to his paper, Gutmann said that it is unnecessary to run those passes because you cannot be reasonably certain about how a modern hard disk stores data on the platter. If the encoding is unknown, then writing random patterns is your best strategy.

In particular, Gutmann says that "in the time since this paper was published, some people have treated the 35-pass overwrite technique described in it more as a kind of voodoo incantation to banish evil spirits than the result of a technical analysis of drive encoding techniques. As a result, they advocate applying the voodoo to PRML and EPRML drives even though it will have no more effect than a simple scrubbing with random data... For any modern PRML/EPRML drive, a few passes of random scrubbing is the best you can do".

[AlanHK]

A single wipe, overwriting with zeros or random data, is more than sufficient. That's safe from any software recovery.

You're donating this to a school. I don't think they have a clean room and an electron microscope to disassemble the disc and read the residual magnetism and recover your old porn.

"DOD wipe", etc, etc is for those who wear a tinfoil hat and know the CIA has their tooth fillings bugged.

Use something like Darik's Boot and Nuke and you will be fine.

I get a bit sad at seeing perfectly good hardware destroyed by paranoid types, making the rest of the computer a paperweight, when it could be easily and safely wiped, a clean OS installed, and be useful, instead of being dumped as toxic waste.

If you have data you really want to keep private, you should be using encryption. That makes erasing it redundant; though you should just to free up the space.


Note, if possible, also donate any original software install disks that came with the PC. Though a school would probably already have a site licence for its standard software if they're organised. But there might be unusual drivers needed.

[Video Head]

I get a bit sad at seeing perfectly good hardware destroyed by paranoid types, making the rest of the computer a paperweight, when it could be easily and safely wiped, a clean OS installed, and be useful, instead of being dumped as toxic waste.

I could not agree with you more...but some organizations are under legal/contractual obligation to take measures that guarantee that no data stored on end of life or malfuctioned data storage mediums could be accessed or retrieved by others. If my career, financial well being or even my freedom depended upon that never happening I would have them shredded, the pieces melted down and the recycled metal used in the construction of bombs or missles...

[redwudz]

hudsonf, off topic from the original question, but I love to see things shredded. Nice link. They shred cars in Washington state under water. It floats off the oils for recovery and it and quiets down the whole process. They separate the plastics and metals, other than iron, such as aluminum and copper, by electromagnetism. It's very impressive. Bumper to bumper, including engine blocks and drive train, all at one time.

But on topic, I would recommend a minimum of a 3 pass DOD wipe for any drive that I might pass on to strangers. More if you have data that might be compromising. But in that case, I would physically destroy the drive instead. You would be surprised at the knowledge of data recovery exhibited by some high school level students. It's all out there and available on the web.

[Video Head]

About 5 years ago I formatted a stack of 100MB ZIP discs. Soon after I realized that there was one file that was not stored elsewhere and I needed it back. I downloaded a utility from the web and ran it on the ZIP discs. It not only found the file I wanted, but much to my surprise it took about 30 seconds to find files going back 7 years...one's that I figured had long been overwritten considering the small size of the medium. Scary. I have since discarded ZIP as a storage device. The discs met the cinder block and hammer method combined with the aviation sheers method. Too many customer and personal files stored on those over the years...

[crowmaine]

I recently found Sure Delete. It will clear individual files or a complete disk drive. You get to select the number of passes and block size with the complete disk program.

But note the READ BEFORE DOWNLOADING paragraph: "The software you are about to download in no longer supported or updated. While it works just fine and could be used without any problems, I no longer have time to create updates or provide support. The software comes as-is without any warranties."

I have used it in WinXPsp2 to 'clean' a USB portable HD.

[zoobie]

I think the engine blocks are removed first...

[PhoneMatt]

Man, I love the way these topics take all kinds of twists and turns. And I definitely love the pictures! Thanks to all of you.

[lordsmurf]

Format, then overwrite every last kb with DVD rips, then format again.