How to remove private info off hard drive

[Jay Jolliffe]

I lease the computer I have & have to return it in a week or so. I'd like to remove any private stuff collected over the four yrs I've had it. I just want to remove banking & credit card info....Is there an easy way to do it ?

[Stephen Tashiro]

Does your lease require that you return the computer with the operating system working? -i.e. are you permitted to wipe everything off the hard drive including (I assume) Windows? Or must you leave the operating system so it works?

[Chuck Wintle]

I would perform a low-level format of the hard drive and reinstall the os. That is the only way to get rid of data on the drive. You can use a program from the hard drive maker to do the low level format.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Even a low level format won't protect your information from recovery.

A "wipe" formats and writes random data to all the addresses and then reload the OS.

There are different versions of " wipes" and can take very long periods of times.

I just donated a computer to a church bazaar. I performed a military wipe on the 2 270G hard drives and then reloaded the OS.

The wipe took 37 hours if I remember correctly.

[Chuck Wintle]

link to killdisk formatting software....

http://www.killdisk.com/

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Chuck....read the statement..

Active@ KillDisk - Hard Drive Eraser is powerful and compact software that allows you to destroy all data on hard and floppy drives completely, excluding any possibility of future recovery of deleted files and folders. It's a hard drive and partition eraser utility.
If you use FDISK, FORMAT utilities, or DELETE standard operating system command for data removal, there is always a chance to recover deleted files (using undelete (http://www.active-undelete.com/) or unformat (http://www.unformat.com/) tools) and use against the owner's will. We highly recommend you to run this FREE utility for the hard and floppy drives you want to dispose of, recycle, re-use, sell or donate to somebody.
Active@ KillDisk conforms to US Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DoD 5220.22-M (http://www.killdisk.com/dod.htm). The most secure Gutmann's data destruction method is also implemented.
Both WIPE and KILL functions support 17 security standards from various countries such as USA, Canada, Germany and others. You can be sure that once you clean up with Active@ KillDisk, sensitive information is purged out forever.

It's not just a formatting program Chuck...it's an eraser program...it formats and writes random data...

[Chuck Wintle]

Chuck....read the statement..

Active@ KillDisk - Hard Drive Eraser is powerful and compact software that allows you to destroy all data on hard and floppy drives completely, excluding any possibility of future recovery of deleted files and folders. It's a hard drive and partition eraser utility.
If you use FDISK, FORMAT utilities, or DELETE standard operating system command for data removal, there is always a chance to recover deleted files (using undelete (http://www.active-undelete.com/) or unformat (http://www.unformat.com/) tools) and use against the owner's will. We highly recommend you to run this FREE utility for the hard and floppy drives you want to dispose of, recycle, re-use, sell or donate to somebody.
Active@ KillDisk conforms to US Department of Defense clearing and sanitizing standard DoD 5220.22-M (http://www.killdisk.com/dod.htm). The most secure Gutmann's data destruction method is also implemented.
Both WIPE and KILL functions support 17 security standards from various countries such as USA, Canada, Germany and others. You can be sure that once you clean up with Active@ KillDisk, sensitive information is purged out forever.

It's not just a formatting program Chuck...it's an eraser program...it formats and writes random data...

Ken,

What other way is there but to completely erase the drive and start from square one? If date is simple deleted then a determined individual can always get it.....unless i misunderstood something.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

When you format a hd or floppy all you do is write addresses for the sectors and cylinders. What ever data was in those area remains until it's over written.

An "eraser" program or "wipe" or "Kill" formats AND writes random data to every address on the disk. That's why it takes so much longer.

I can format a 250 G HD, for example, in a few minutes. The same HD will takes hours to "wipe", "erase" or "kill".

When you perform a wipe.... or erase....or kill to at least military standards it formats the device and writes random data to each address on the HD, floppy etc for a minimum of 7 different times...using different data each time. The Guttmann data destruction method takes even longer because it uses....again IIRC...21 different random data sets.

I recently used "Wipe" to clean personal data off a Dell computer of ours that had 2 270?.....280 GB hd. It took something like 37 hours for the military standard "kill" process. I was glad I didn't use the Guttmann....

[Phil Thien]

The Guttmann data destruction method takes even longer because it uses....again IIRC...21 different random data sets.


Overkill with modern drives. No problem if you have the time. But a single wipe of a drive makes the data completely unrecoverable.

And lest someone brings up the fact that the CIA and data recovery outfits can still read the drive, the answer to that is: No they can't.

Maybe once upon a time with older ST-506 interface drives. But not with today's drives.

[paul cottingham]

It is a file system level thing. Therefore I doubt how modern the drive is has any effect at all. Use a drive wiper like dban.

[Bill Huber]

If you do not want to reload the OS as Ken was saying about the only thing you can do without adding 3rd party software is to delete the files you want deleted. Then empty the Recycle bin and then do a Defrig.

This is about the safest way to do it unless you get 3rd party software. There is software out there that will write 1s and 0s to each sector of the disk.

You can also us CIPHER to do the job, it is a command line program.
Open a command line window and type cipher /?

You can do a Google search on Cipher and find all kinds of information.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Just for clarification...

the program that Chuck linked to should work just fine IMO.

However, I didn't want anyone reading this to pickup on the use of the word "format" and think they could just "format" the disk and have their data unrecoverable.

This program he linked to obviously does more than format the HD. It's the overwriting of the data at each address that makes it nearly impossible to recover.

[John Coloccia]

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/how-to-really-erase-a-hard-drive-update/148

Secure Erase has been build into drives for a while now. There's absolutely no reason in the world to spend a dime doing anything else.

[paul cottingham]

My bad. You're right, some new drives do have it built in.I would still probably use a non low level tool, because i am superstitious about them, seen to many drives creamed by them.
This is just my own weird superstitions tho'.

[Jim King]

When I gave the computers to the employees when I closed my company I replaced the hard drives and kept the old ones with all the information. That was easy, I dont know about the other ways.

[Bryan Morgan]

7.62x39 at about 20 meters does wonders to protect your data, after you've put it on "good" hard drive of course. :D At work we don't have time to use those secure deleting applications so we just collect the hard drives and then go grind them up, shoot them, try out impact drills on them, etc...

[Curt Harms]

7.62x39 at about 20 meters does wonders to protect your data, after you've put it on "good" hard drive of course. :D At work we don't have time to use those secure deleting applications so we just collect the hard drives and then go grind them up, shoot them, try out impact drills on them, etc...

That might be fun but disassembling them and salvaging the magnets yields some handy holders for metal machine accessories e.g. wrenches, handles etc. I used a couple and a piece of angle iron to make a lamp mount for a Rikon 10-325 lamp that actually works. As far as the platters themselves, I suspect you could just add them to the waste stream. Without the housing how many people would actually recognize what they are? Or targets, torch 'em, rub 'em with a strong magnet, whatever.

[Bryan Morgan]

That might be fun but disassembling them and salvaging the magnets yields some handy holders for metal machine accessories e.g. wrenches, handles etc. I used a couple and a piece of angle iron to make a lamp holder for a Rikon 10-325 lamp that actually works. As far as the platters themselves, I suspect you could just add them to the waste stream. Without the housing how many people would actually recognize what they are? Or targets, torch 'em, rub 'em with a strong magnet, whatever.

Yep! I use them to hold chucks near on the drill press or the allen wrench needed to change blocks on the bandsaw, hold drawers closed.... Some of them are very nasty though, way too strong. They snap together and tear your skin apart (ask me how I know! :) ) Sometimes we give the platters to one of our guys who is a martial arts teacher. He uses them to practice throwing and defending throwing stars...:confused: We want to tease him about it but he'd kick our butts.

[Mike Langford]

When I gave the computers to the employees when I closed my company I replaced the hard drives and kept the old ones with all the information. That was easy, I dont know about the other ways.

I agree with Jim....Just replace the hard drive if possible, then get yourself an external hard drive enclosure and you'll have access to all your OLD data when you get your NEW computer....