Wiping HDD

[msommers]

I have a couple HDD's I want to sell but want to totally wipe them first. What's a good free program that will do this effectively? I have all Western Digital, internal and external HDDs, if that matters.

[Grogador]

Ccleaner can do it, lotsa other file deleting/secure erase/shredding utils, otherwise burn a dban disc

[Mitsu3000gt]

Dban auto nuke. It is a military-grade wipe from what I understand. Writes over the drive 3 times to guarantee nothing remains. It's linux based and you run it on startup.

I use it for any hard drives that go with computers I sell, and my company uses it too at work.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/dban.html

[ricosuave]

^ this. there is no other that does it as quickly or effecively

[revelations]

Just a heads up that these programs will take hours to clean the drive.

[msommers]

Does the program nuke all HDDs or can you select which one you want?

[Zorac]

i just use a standard windows quick format to make sure the drive in question is empty, then run eraser on them. it give all the standard multiple over-right options. like mentioned above, this can take hours.

http://eraser.heidi.ie/

[msommers]

CC cleaner I have already and it's super easy. Can do up to 35 passes Plus I can keep the computer running and do other things. Thanks all!

Also found an interesting article on how many passes was enough. Guess I'll take my chances on one haha.

https://www.anti-forensics.com/disk-...ass-is-enough/

[Grogador]

Ccleaner (or Recuva, another free Piriform product) works and doesn't involve burning a CD or even rebooting. Single pass is fast and good enough; nobody is going to stick your platters under a tunneling microscope. The chances of spotting the magnetic shadow of even two consecutive bits on today's drives is negligible.

Like all that ISO/standards stuff, it's about following a simple process and having an audit trail. Military grade wipe involves degaussing, grinding the drives down into a fine powder and then smelting them. It's the only way to be sure.

[v2kai]

http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-...l-Format-Tool/

[msommers]

One of my WD Passports was completely erased but now it won't format. I try to use the Windows quick format option but it says it's unable. I can see it in My Computer but not access it. Any suggestions?

[Seth1968]

If you didn't restart the computer after the wipe, do so now and see if that helps.

If not, you need to go into Disk Management and do one or more of the following: Make sure the drive is initialized, has a drive letter, and create a partition on it.

[msommers]

At first I couldn't even see it in Disk Management. Restarted comp. Got it to show up and it was unallocated. I recognized this when I was putting in new internal HDDs so I went ahead with this process to format it. Still was unable to format it. Now the File System = RAW and Status = Healthy (Primary Partition).

[Grogador]

Do you have an option to "convert to dynamic disc" for this drive in disk mgmt? Might be under right click, or one of the menu headings. Otherwise, maybe download the WDC tools for Passport drives, iirc it includes a partitioning tool.

[msommers]

Mark Partition as Active?

Just tried the WD Quick Formatter and it couldn't format it either. Maybe this thing is just toast.

[Grogador]

Active is for boot drives. Windows is weird with removable drives, it won't allow you to do certain things... Dunno what could be up with it, weird that the WDC tool didn't work, any errors? What options did you use? I think it has a few formatting modes?? Try a different USB port, ideally one of a stack of two on the back of the PC.

[msommers]

Nada

Looks like I'll get to go all Office Space on this bitch.

[Grogador]

RMA it? Pull the disk out of the USB enclosure and connect it to a laptop/40pin adapter/USB drive adapter?

[msommers]

I'm not sure if I know where the receipt is for this. I opened it up (which was easier than I expected) and this is what I have for connections.


» Click image for larger version

[revelations]

that looks like a Mac connector ... can you pull off that connector board somehow to expose the SATA connectors underneath ?