Completely 100% totally hardcore remove everything from HD?

[Kyorisu]

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

Ha wipe a drive to all 0s yourself and see what you can get off it. I'm willing to put money down you get nothing. If anyone with an electron microscope like the NSA are after you you're pretty much boned anyway. However in all other circumstances all 0s will do the trick. There is simply no need for anything extra.

 

[Saturos]

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.

Reformatting doesn't really delete the data though, it just moves it to other unused sectors of the disk.
People who know what they're doing can recover data from a reformatted HD.
Oh and about the Recycle Bin mentioned earlier,

:|.....

Note to wannabe cyber criminals out there:
This ain't gonna cut it.
Please, just stop what you're doing now, drill holes in your HD, and give up the life of cyber crime before you embarrass yourselves as our entertainment of the world's dumbest criminals.

P.S. Vegeta, I know you were just kidding though.....right?

 

[Kyorisu]

Reformatting doesn't really delete the data though, it just moves it to other unused sectors of the disk.

Any app worth it's salt will write 0s to all sectors.

People who know what they're doing can recover data from a reformatted HD.

If you bothered to format properly you cannot recover anything without a physical inspection of the drive with an electron microscope.

 

[Laivasse]

I know the OP is already sorted out, but for future reference this utility called Eraser is seemingly capable of writing passes over the unused portion of your HD, without the need for a reformat.

Whether it has any real-world effectiveness or whether it's just an ineffective gimmick, I have no idea.

 

[Crushenator 500]

I've actually had a job before where 1/3rd of my work was wiping hard drives (I also had to re-image windows and clean them up physically, they were all donations from companies)

We had quite a lot of government orders

This is the programme that I had to use there

http://www.blancco.com/en/frontpage/

 

[kineaesth]

Oh and about the Recycle Bin mentioned earlier,

:|.....

I know you were just kidding though.....right?

God you're dumb, Saturos. Obviously you'd empty the recycle bin too.

 

[morgs]

I would have thought a windows reinstall would have done it

 

[Vegeta897]

God you're dumb, Saturos. Obviously you'd empty the recycle bin too.

And tell the computer to keep it a secret, of course.

 

[Barney Fife]

I would have thought a windows reinstall would have done it

Unless you come to find pic of naked kids on the HD, right about the same time the Fed finds out you did, and the chase begins.

Reformatting doesn't really delete the data though, it just moves it to other unused sectors of the disk.
People who know what they're doing can recover data from a reformatted HD.

Obviously, you did not read my post.

On sidenote: Reformatting does not move data to unused sectors of the disk.

 

[Saturos]

Obviously, you did not read my post.

Obviously. Sorry bout that. I tend to, "miss the point" sometimes. Everything I said is still true though. Unless proven otherwise of course.

On sidenote: Reformatting does not move data to unused sectors of the disk.

What does it do then? It certainly doesn't totally delete it.

God you're dumb, Saturos. Obviously you'd empty the recycle bin too.

Obviously. I was assuming that already though. Either way it doesn't make much difference if you do empty it or not tbh.

What Windows doesn't tell you at first glance, (not so obvious to many non-users) is that it merely took the lazy way out and just discarded your unwanted files all over the place (or rather, swept it all under the carpet) rather than putting it in the incinerator for permanent disposal. Try emptying your recycle bin of some files. I guarantee you alot of it's still in C:\.

"Window's file management is a joke compared to other OSs like Linux" is what my former collegue and professor used to tell me.

 

[Jintor]

What does it do then? It certainly doesn't totally delete it.

It marks it as 'overwritable' - that is to say, it changes the format so that it becomes, in effect, 'free space'.

 

[TCfromBN]

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.

I don't think you have any clue what you're talking about.

If they really want to get data off of a nuked drive, they can. Assuming, you haven't done enough passes to get any residual charges on the plates that the head might have missed. The read/writer heads don't have 100% precision.

 

[Baserape>]

Your goat porn is still on your HD. DESTROY IT. When you sell your PC everyone at PC World will know you LIKE goat porn. Porn is cool, goat porn is animal abuse.

 

[Barney Fife]

Obviously. Sorry bout that. I tend to, "miss the point" sometimes. Everything I said is still true though. Unless proven otherwise of course.

No harm done here. Even if you read, you wouldn't still understand what I was mumbling about: Swan=Swamp, Bond=Pond, Etc.

What does it do then? It certainly doesn't totally delete it.

Like Jintor said, it flags HD space area, which previously occupied by whatever you just deleted/formatted as writable area, therefore, having OS and or BIOS disregard the sectors as data containing. But that doesn't mean the data is missing and completely erased from the HD; any recovery software can still retrieve such data.
Other good ways to get rid of sensitive files is to use shredding software which replaces data with Is and Os and making the area available for writing.

Take Care.

 

[Kyorisu]

I don't think you have any clue what you're talking about.

If they really want to get data off of a nuked drive, they can. Assuming, you haven't done enough passes to get any residual charges on the plates that the head might have missed. The read/writer heads don't have 100% precision.

Yes they can but that means physically inspecting the drive. Trying to read any info off the ATA interface and you'll get zeroes. ****. You're ****ed anyway if enough suspicion exists that a government agency actually wants to seize your equipment. Otherwise you have no problem.

If you bothered to read one of my other posts you'll notice I mention nothing else is needed. I'm under the assumption the OP just wanted a clean drive (thus has been achieved already). I seriously doubt the OP was under federal investigation for kiddie pron or something. If that was the case you'd melt the drive (and I've seen someone do that).