37 replies to this topic

[Canary]

What's the easiest and safest way to completely wipe the hard drive of a computer that is about to be got rid of? And I mean COMPLETELY wipe it?

[acooldozen]

...........a HAMMER! LOL

Have a peek here........http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,110338,00.asp

[Glenn]

DBAN is free and available at several download sites including:

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

[kobrakommander56]

C4

[ccleaner professional user]

There is a freeware opensource file at sourceforge.net called eraser 5.7 that can wipe a drive. There is also robin hood software's Evidence Eliminator (not free). As for the most secure, get your harddisk totally degaussed with an extremely high powered magnet (think like the use on cranes at junkyards or higher) for about 5 min or so. Don't expect to be able to use it after that. But just to be sure they don't try to snoop through it with electron microscopes or attempt to read left or right of a track for ghost images, with the harddisk diagnostic mode normally used in error correction, and just in case you are super paranoid, try welding it into a smoldering pile of dust (make sure you wear your proper welding gear to keep from being blinded, or have a friend do it for you so you dont have to while you watch to be sure it gets destroyed). Or, try submerging it in hydrochloric acid bath and then disposing of it into either the nearest volcanoe vent, or your garbage displosal machine. Heck, if you throw it away in the garbage, they might not even notice. Don't forget that the transient data on your ram sticks that dissappears on each reboot of an operating system, might have traces that can be recovered from the last session, so just crack and burn those, or expose them to a dangerously high current until you know it is positively fried into oblivion till kingdom come. Even so, I don't know if these methods are extreme enough, or if you really want to send it into outer space on a path to the sun to be destroyed in a fiery inferno. Well, be sure that whatever way that you choose, you do it to the extreme. If you do download the eraser or evidence eliminator, I highly recommend setting it to far beyond the dod or even nsa level of destruction, just to be sure. Somethine like 999 times or so, and repeat that 999 times to be certain that your data really is destroyed beyond recovery. Or that they can't use pattern matching and say, since this is now a 0 then it must have been a 1 prior and dig down through multiple layers till they recover your stuff. Make them work their ass off. At least maybe they will give up before they have any hope. Why work too hard for something like that? I hope that I helped you. I will be glad to assist you with any problems you have in the future. Amen.

[lokoike]

ccleaner professional user, on Feb 3 2006, 01:18 AM, said:

...I will be glad to assist you with any problems you have in the future...

You mean other than having a welded, overly magnetized, acidic, melted, space floating, C4ed, hammered hard drive, right? Because those problems would be somewhat difficult to remedy. Of course, Canary's data would certainly be the last of his/her concerns after that extensive ordeal.

[englishmen]

ccleaner professional user, on Feb 3 2006, 07:18 AM, said:

There is a freeware opensource file at sourceforge.net called eraser 5.7 that can wipe a drive. There is also robin hood software's Evidence Eliminator (not free). As for the most secure, get your harddisk totally degaussed with an extremely high powered magnet (think like the use on cranes at junkyards or higher) for about 5 min or so. Don't expect to be able to use it after that. But just to be sure they don't try to snoop through it with electron microscopes or attempt to read left or right of a track for ghost images, with the harddisk diagnostic mode normally used in error correction, and just in case you are super paranoid, try welding it into a smoldering pile of dust (make sure you wear your proper welding gear to keep from being blinded, or have a friend do it for you so you dont have to while you watch to be sure it gets destroyed). Or, try submerging it in hydrochloric acid bath and then disposing of it into either the nearest volcanoe vent, or your garbage displosal machine. Heck, if you throw it away in the garbage, they might not even notice. Don't forget that the transient data on your ram sticks that dissappears on each reboot of an operating system, might have traces that can be recovered from the last session, so just crack and burn those, or expose them to a dangerously high current until you know it is positively fried into oblivion till kingdom come. Even so, I don't know if these methods are extreme enough, or if you really want to send it into outer space on a path to the sun to be destroyed in a fiery inferno. Well, be sure that whatever way that you choose, you do it to the extreme. If you do download the eraser or evidence eliminator, I highly recommend setting it to far beyond the dod or even nsa level of destruction, just to be sure. Somethine like 999 times or so, and repeat that 999 times to be certain that your data really is destroyed beyond recovery. Or that they can't use pattern matching and say, since this is now a 0 then it must have been a 1 prior and dig down through multiple layers till they recover your stuff. Make them work their ass off. At least maybe they will give up before they have any hope. Why work too hard for something like that? I hope that I helped you. I will be glad to assist you with any problems you have in the future. Amen.

Jesus christ dude paragraphs paragraphs.

[lokoike]

englishmen, on Feb 3 2006, 04:05 AM, said:

Jesus christ dude paragraphs paragraphs.

His ENTER key must be broken. If he tourches his hard drives, lord knows what he does with his keyboard!

[krit86lr]

ccleaner professional user, on Feb 3 2006, 01:18 AM, said:

There is a freeware opensource file at sourceforge.net called eraser 5.7 that can wipe a drive. through multiple layers till they recover your stuff. hope that I helped you.

Will you make paragraphs please because your posts are getting very difficult to read. Thank you.

[lokoike]

krit86lr, on Feb 3 2006, 10:29 PM, said:

Will you make paragraphs please because your posts are getting very difficult to read. Thank you.

Actually, he has been structuring his paragraphs very nicely as of recent. Evidently he purchased himself a nice new (untourched) keyboard.

[krit86lr]

lokoike, on Feb 4 2006, 01:43 AM, said:

Actually, he has been structuring his paragraphs very nicely as of recent. Evidently he purchased himself a nice new (untourched) keyboard.

Where?!?

I've seen them yet. You asked to get picked on ccleaner profressional user.

[lokoike]

krit86lr, on Feb 4 2006, 01:50 AM, said:

Where?!?

I've seen them yet. You asked to get picked on ccleaner profressional user.

Viola!

But yeah, he's just a magnet for abuse. j/k!

But he has a lot of cool ideas, so I will forgive his previous lack of an ENTER key.

[krit86lr]

lokoike, on Feb 4 2006, 02:03 AM, said:

Viola!

But yeah, he's just a magnet for abuse. j/k!

But he has a lot of cool ideas, so I will forgive his previous lack of an ENTER key.

You must be bored. You probably had to search through a lot of posts to find that one. Good job! Can I call you PI ok ok lie?

[lokoike]

krit86lr, on Feb 4 2006, 02:10 AM, said:

You must be bored. You probably had to search through a lot of posts to find that one. Good job! Can I call you PI ok ok lie?

Actually, it was the second topic under my search for "paragraph"; but yes, I am indeed bored.

And if "PI ok ok lie" is easier to type than "lokoike", go for it. What is the PI? 3.1415...?

[krit86lr]

lokoike, on Feb 4 2006, 02:18 AM, said:

Actually, it was the second topic under my search for "paragraph"; but yes, I am indeed bored.

And if "PI ok ok lie" is easier to type than "lokoike", go for it. What is the PI? 3.1415...?

It was a joke. PI = personal investigator & ok ok lie was your name from the anagram website in the lounge. Nevermind. I'll keep my jokes to myself.

[lokoike]

krit86lr, on Feb 4 2006, 02:26 AM, said:

It was a joke. PI = personal investigator & ok ok lie was your name from the anagram website in the lounge. Nevermind. I'll keep my jokes to myself.

Oh, I see! I got the "ok ok lie" part (actually, I think I posted that, but I'm not sure). I was thinking PI like the symbol (3.1415...), instead of the obvious. Doh!

You can still joke, and I'll even force a chuckle now and then.

[Eldmannen]

This is a large topic with much things to it. Older harddisk used to be harder to wipe, today they are much easier to wipe. It is relatively easy to wipe a disk to make it very very difficult to perform data recovery on.

But it is possible to open the disk in labs and look at the polarisations and stuff and read out data, however that is extremely expensive.

Depends on how far you want to go, and how important it is to wipe it.
There is a DoJ standard about rewriting all data on the disk with random data 17 times, I think. Afaik, Eraser can do that.

But if the data contains how you transform a hairdrier into a thermonuclear weapon, you might want to be even sure it is not possible to recover any data from it.

Use the most powerful magnetic degausser you can find, dip it 100 different (acid) chemicals, put some thermite on it (2500 celcius degrees), drop it from a very high building, open the disk and sandpaper the discs, run it over with a tank, and make sure it vaporizes into steam or dust.

[ccleaner professional user]

Eldmannen, on Feb 4 2006, 09:50 AM, said:

This is a large topic with much things to it. Older harddisk used to be harder to wipe, today they are much easier to wipe. It is relatively easy to wipe a disk to make it very very difficult to perform data recovery on.

But it is possible to open the disk in labs and look at the polarisations and stuff and read out data, however that is extremely expensive.

Depends on how far you want to go, and how important it is to wipe it.
There is a DoJ standard about rewriting all data on the disk with random data 17 times, I think. Afaik, Eraser can do that.

But if the data contains how you transform a hairdrier into a thermonuclear weapon, you might want to be even sure it is not possible to recover any data from it.

Use the most powerful magnetic degausser you can find, dip it 100 different (acid) chemicals, put some thermite on it (2500 celcius degrees), drop it from a very high building, open the disk and sandpaper the discs, run it over with a tank, and make sure it vaporizes into steam or dust.

I never would of thought my ideas would get so much attention. Will it work if you only put some either cesium or just maybe some magnesium on it and burn it all the way through? Or is that not destroying it far enough?

ccleaner professional user, on Feb 4 2006, 10:33 AM, said:

I never would of thought my ideas would get so much attention. Will it work if you only put some either cesium or just maybe some magnesium on it and burn it all the way through? Or is that not destroying it far enough?

P.S. I really did a lot of thinking about the dumping it into a volcano crater idea, but on hind thought, I decided it's probably not safe enough. I mean, how can you know for SURE that the volcaoe is gonna stay active long enough to completely destroy the drive? Or what it it lands on the egde instead of in the lava or magma pit and you can't retrieve it yet? What if instead of destroying it, some of that hot lava forms around it and cools into a harded layer, protecting the drive, and they find it years later after you died? They might come after you or something.

Thanks, please let me know what you think too. I really appreciate your suggestions and thoughts.

[lokoike]

Eldmannen, on Feb 4 2006, 08:50 AM, said:

...dip it 100 different (acid) chemicals...

Bad Eldmannen! Bad! You don't mix chemicals! You'll end up making a poison cloud or something, and the drive won't be the only thing that gets it.

But yes, ccleaner professional user, a volcano doesn't seem safe enough. Just think, if in the future they find your drive encased in pumice, they might dig you up and bring you back to life, just so they can punish you! And who knows what sort of dastardly deeds they do to evil-doers in the future?! What if they damn you to an eternity of listening to Celine Dion albums?!! The horror!!

[Andavari]

Eldmannen, on Feb 4 2006, 08:50 AM, said:

Use the most powerful magnetic degausser you can find, dip it 100 different (acid) chemicals, put some thermite on it (2500 celcius degrees), drop it from a very high building, open the disk and sandpaper the discs, run it over with a tank, and make sure it vaporizes into steam or dust.

Brutality! If I had such confidential data (I don't) I'd skip all those steps and just take it to a metal refinery and have it melted.