Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

I have a number of old work PCs (Pentium 4 so yes really old) and server that before they can be recycled, dumped, etc, for data protection I need to ensure the hard drives cannot be read. Short of taking a sledgehammer to the drives, I'm looking at eraser software. I have no budget so it needs to be open source.

I'm currently trying Darik's Boot and Nuke, which was only a few MB in size and easy to download and burn onto a disk. But for even only an 80GB drive, it's going to take around 2 hours to do it's standard single round 3 passes of whatever it's doing.

So, the questions:

Is this the "best" programme, or are there others I could try?

Am I being paranoid, given that some of these PCs and especially the server held accounting and customer data that is subject to DPA? Is the use of this type of software adequate, over the top, or insufficient?

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

Take the hard discs apart and wipe a strong magnet over the drive platters, and throw them out. Then recycle the PCs.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

Quicker just to take a sledgehammer to them surely?

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

Yes, but a sledgehammer doesn't erase the data, and may not do more than dent the platters unless they're glass platters.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

do you realise how strong the magnet needs to be to do that??

you could zero the drive there are loads of programs that do it but it takes ages and a forensic could still retrieve data

If its really critical strip the drives and smash the platters

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

You'd need a really strong magnet yes, something like off a large subwoofer. You might in fact be better off getting someone like Shred-IT to come take them away and pulverise them, it depends how much you want that data destroyed. But you said you have no budget.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

you are kidding me right? we are talking industrial electro magnetic fields.

---------- Post added at 12:08 ---------- Previous post was at 12:04 ----------

http://www.pcworld.com/article/11657..._pc_myths.html

have a little read of this and its not the techguys pcworld its something else

DBAN will zero the drive fine only someone loaded or a computer forensic examiner will retrieve anything after. Remember it takes ages

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

I stand corrected. Just destroy them with extreme prejudice.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

I agree best to do it properly and not use a magnet, use the right software or if you have to take it apart and destroy the platters.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

An iron magnet won't do sod all as the poles won't fully change the data to a point it can;t be easily recovered..

Now a strong AC magnet will do the trick and that's what's used by the larger companies that need their data removed before disposal.. You could just take out the platters and microwave them though you also need a cup of water inside the MW and you will get some sparks :D

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

Not sure that the office health and safety policies will go for that one :D

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

The safest option is to remove and destroy the drives. Then dispose of the PCs without drives.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

I have the same problem and was thinking of just smashing them up with an sds drill, club hammer or something but I think I'll take the opportunity to see what's inside and then use the platters as target practice for my trusty Theoben SLR98. :D

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

DBAN is, to be honest, what I consider to be an industry standard. It's fast, reliable, simple, and flexible.

The speed bottleneck is usually the drive itself, so no other software is going to do the same thing faster. Note also, that you don't *need* to do 3 passes if you don't want to, a single pass is obviously 3 times faster - DBAN is fully configurable so you can do as many passes as you want.

In my opinion 1 single pass is perfectly sufficient. The cost of hardware and expertise required to recover data even from a single pass is immense, and beyond that of even most professional data recovery companies. Multiple passes (i.e. 3-7) are pretty much overkill barring top secret government data (there is a reason for the DoD approved 3/7 pass routines - they are officially sanctioned for top-secret government data) - but what's a few hours of leaving a computer in a rack somewhere and ignoring it?

So to cut it short - 3 passes (the default with DBAN) - perfectly adequate. Any more is over the top, less may be adequate in practice, but may not be legally.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

good job they released the info about Guttman being way to much though isnt it :-) 35 passes of a 2TB drive now that would take a lifetime

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

I wouldn't waste my time with erasing software since they are not being used again. A lump hammer across the platters will render them useless.

Reason is the head sits a nat's wisker above the platter when operating and cannot follow any kind of surface irregularites. Moreso the ones a lump hammer can inflict.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

Take apart the drives; remove the platters; drill 12 holes around the circumference and then mount a clock mechanism in the middle. Hang on your wall for a nice art-deco timepiece.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

One option smash them open then take a angle grinder to the platters.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

We use Shred-IT and get them to dispose of all our disks now.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

CCleaner has an option to set the delete pass at 35 times, more than enough.

Then snap off a few pins on the drives too.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

Or just buy a larger angle grinder and go through the whole drive :D

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

Or just toss them into an active volcano. :D

It might be easier to take them to PC World for a clean-up and they'll probably disappear forever... :D

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

Honestly Rob, if I were you, I would forget that you ever asked. Clearly they love and respect you but at the same time are taking the.... Hey, I laughed :)

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

If speed is the only concern, nothing beats the speed and thoroughness of thermite.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

I think what I've learnt from this thread is that the destructive approach is preferred simply because it's more fun :D

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

Woohoo! Break them, you know you'll enjoy it. However, telling the boss that you blew up the kitchen as a result of microwaving hdd platters and the all important cup of water(ignore the sparks) may not be the absolute answer. If I'm wrong heyho, it's not unusual :)

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

Gutman was designed for another era, when drives were not stretching the media capacity to the limit. One overwrite pass will defeat anything except what the security services may have.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

Another good reason to smash the drive to pieces.....

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

"Gutmann", in all 35 passes was never needed. It's a collection of wipe patterns all targeted to different drive encoding methods. If you know the method used, you only need to run the pattern for that drive.

The paper Gutmann wrote as well theorising recovery from overwrite data was also based entirely on theory and had no basis on what is, or was ever actually possible.

There hasn't been any recorded evidence of any data been recovered from an overwrote drive, and the whole "the heads don't track perfectly" thing where it MAY be possible to recover what the previous write was would require manual per bit recovery, and just isn't really at all feasible.

Even the security services can't recover from one a one pass wipe.

Still, I've worked for many companies that have to dispose of drives, and the favoured method of most of them is shredding.
It's fast and worry free, you see the drives go in, you see the ground up drives come out. It's a lot faster than having to bother with wipes.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

Have a look at the program and documents linked to above, interesting reading.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

I think Dban can do multiple drives in parallel?

I'd just shove as many drives as possible in one machine set it going and come back to it later.

Re: Secure Hard Disk Disk Erase
 

Might as well just boot up a linux machine and do dd if=/dev/urandom