Completely 100% totally hardcore remove everything from HD?

[Ravioli]

Im want to utterly erase everything existing on my two harddrives forever, and i dont mean delete, i mean a complete destruction of the electrons or whatever is used to store things on harddrives, but i want to be able to reinstall XP on it afterwards. Im going to clean off everything using shredder programs, but i wonder if there is any program that you burn on a cd which then does another complete deletion of the hard drive? After that, i will format using the XP CD, and then install XP again.


Why? I havent formated in almost 2 years and i want everything gone, to the smallest atom, and i dont think a normal windows format is enough. For obvious reasons too, but i wont speak of those because talking about piracy on these forums has recently been declared bannable, so il avoid that.

 

[Saturos]

Your in luck, because in this issue of Popular Mechanics I purchased the other day, it recommends some software to completely wipe an HD. Type in Evidence Eliminator or cyberCide in your search engine of choice and see what you get.

EDIT> Or if you have a strong enough electro-magnet, I hear those work well too.

 

[Krynn72]

This is the only one I've ever used. Its free, it works, and its pretty trusted around the internets.

http://www.dban.org/

Some info on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darik's_Boot_and_Nuke


Just make sure to do the "quick" option. Otherwise it could take days, and all you need is one pass to thwart virtually any attempts to get at your information.

 

[Ravioli]

thanks to both of you. Btw Krynn, will i be able to run that program from a DVD? I thought only CDs were bootable for bios, or am i wrong? I dont have any cds

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Ravioli = running from the law.

 

[Krynn72]

If you have a burning program like Nero, then yeah, you can make bootable DVDs. Also, if you have a newish computer, get the "preview version" for amd and intel processors. I know theres a problem solved with that version on Core 2 Duo processors. The format will run slow if you use the older version.

 

[bigpapa400lb]

What about a degaussing machine
http://www.periphman.com/degaussing/tape-degaussing/degaussers.shtml

 

[hool10]

How about you don't buy anything at all and just do this? If you log into DOS mode and type in format C: or any HD letter, it will erase it. It will even do it when you want to install the OS again. :|

 

[Krynn72]

How about because thats not going to get rid of the information. :|

 

[Vegeta897]

Just send it all to the recycle bin and it'll be fine.

 

[MRG]

Just send it all to the recycle bin and it'll be fine.

Hahahaha.. - NOT.

-MRG

 

[Lucid]

Just reset CMOS?

 

[Saturos]

Just reset CMOS?

Nope, that won't work either. CMOS is stored on a separate storage chip from the HD. What your saying is called, "flashing the BIOS" and that won't erase any HD data whatsoever.

EDIT> Ooops, nope "flashing the BIOS" is simply updating the BIOS. Not the same as "clearing the CMOS". My bad.
Still won't work though.

There's a third option other than the two I already mentioned, but you'll never be able to use the HD ever again. Drill the platters full of holes.

 

[Krynn72]

He doesnt want to destroy his disk dewds.

Seriously, DBAN does exactly what hes looking for, so I pretty much already won this thread.

 

[Krynn72]

Damn internet made me double post. HURR IM A DUM INTERNETS AND I CANT DOWNLOAD AT A LAME 180KB/S AND MAKE FORUM POSTS AT THE SAME TIME HURR

 

[Operational]

http://www.dban.org/

DBAN was reviewed by the RCMP and it met their minimum standard for use by Canadian government agencies.

In the end your kiddie pron might be gone but the guilt will last forever.

 

[Barney Fife]

Ravioli = running from the law.

Fikin lol, I was about to ask him the same thing.

Revioli, do a complete format when you reinstalling OS, unless you're on the run.
If you are on the run, take off HD/s and throwing them in your nearest (Rather farthest) river, bond, swan, or lake, would do the trick.

Good Luck ... I really mean it.

 

[Ravioli]

Burning stuff has always been a problem for my computer, not even the program the Dban recommend works, just freezes. So im going to do the USB flash drive option, but when i load it onto the USB it says error, however it still does it and the files are there, so i hope it still works. How do i boot the computer from the USB tho? Is there an option in the Bios for that?

thanks

 

[Operational]

Yes, in BIOS you can screw around with boot device priorities.

However the easiest way is to use the boot menu, the key can differ from motherboard to motherboard but try pressing ESC a few times at the computer startup (while BIOS is doing its thing).

 

[Ravioli]

thanks all, il be trying it out soon.

 

[Asus]

All you would need is any program that writes the data on all sections of the drive to ZEROs (data is a pattern of 1s and 0s so when it is all 0s then there is no info there...). Hard drive manufactures have free software on their website (WD, Seagate etc). I'm sure any software you are trying right now that does zero writes will work perfectly fine. It isn't anything fancy. Although it isn't usually called a plain 'format' like what Windows does before you install.

That just makes your boot table/os forget where the data is (not get rid of it) and allow overwrites as if it wasn't there. And that's why recovery software actually works. The data is still there. The recovery software just scans the drive for patterns of 1s and 0s to re-find your files that are not yet overwritten.

Booting from a USB drive might just be "boot from External Hard Drive" in the bios. Any more most boards have this as a feature but not all.

 

[Ravioli]

I changed the boot sequence to start the USB flash drive first, but now it just says "remove flash device and press any key"

EDIT: i managed to burn to a cd, so il try that out now.

EDIT AGAIN: it says it doesnt support SATA drives, what now?

 

[Krynn72]

You may need to get an update for your Bios. Try looking on your manufacturers website.

 

[CyberPitz]

Lake + Harddrive =....well you get the idea.

*EDIT*

Or Hammer and time..then take EACH PIECE and bury them in different locations/putting them in different lakes/rivers/etc.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Looks like ur unban't. How was ur vacation/lurking

 

[CyberPitz]

Looks like ur unban't. How was ur vacation/lurking

I didn't lurk, and the vacation was OK.

 

[Unfocused]

CyberPitz!

 

[DEATHMASTER]

You're avatar did the smiling work for you.

 

[Saturos]

Damn internet made me double post. HURR IM A DUM INTERNETS AND I CANT DOWNLOAD AT A LAME 180KB/S AND MAKE FORUM POSTS AT THE SAME TIME HURR

I wish I could get get at least 180KB a second.

That would be actually be a luxury for me right now.

 

[Ravioli]

SUCCESS, it worked. Took 15 hours though lol, but its all good. Thanks to everyone

 

[Operational]

So what program/technique did you use in the end?

 

[Ravioli]

Used chaos shredder to shred the majority of my hard drives, then used Dban with the Autonuke command. It did work on SATA drives i just read wrong. Then i also did a quick format with the Windows cd.

 

[Barney Fife]

It worked? ... Or, Did it? :naughty:

 

[CyberPitz]

That's just a minor slowdown for the FBI....

 

[-Psy-]

Location: From sweden, live in italy atm

He's a fugitive!

 

[Darkangel]

Finally deleting your Child Porn collection eh?

You should be able to find some good programs with a google search.

 

[Krynn72]

Finally deleting your Child Porn collection eh?

You should be able to find some good programs with a google search.

Pay attention man, his cp collection is history already. You cant waste anytime in situations like his!

 

[TCfromBN]

I know a guy in computer forensics, be careful.

If you truly want to get rid of all electric charges on your hard disk plates, it could take multiple passes of those nuke programs due to the nature in which a hard disk works. The reader/writer heads don't have 100% precision, so the head may not pass completely over the charged region on the plate and may not completely writte over the data when you do a nuke. Doing this properly could take days, weeks depending on the size of the drive.

Again, depending on the size of your hard drive, it may be more practical, in time and money, to actually destroy the hard drive with a magnet and buy a new one. Otherwise, to guarantee that nobody could ever read the data from your disk, you would want to do perhaps 10 passes of a nuke program that does random 1's and 0's to insure that there is no original charges left on the disk. While doing this, on larger drives, the reader/writer heads would most likely fail long before you could do the necessary amount of nuking.

Did that make sense?

 

[Kyorisu]

Write 0s to the drive once over. You're done. Any format app can do this. Multiple passes are BS, once you've written over the data it is gone. You'd need a huge electron microscope and thousands of dollars to waste to even think about getting anything off it.

 

[Operational]

If you are really serious that isn't good enough.