Posted on 09/03/2006 8:58:26 PM PDT by canuck_conservative
Erasing data from a computer is not as simple as the manufacturers would have you believe. Just deleting it or reformatting the hard drive does not remove the data, and the secure removal of data about individuals by companies is now a legal requirement.
There are a number of methods used to "delete" data from a hard drive. These methods do not remove the data, they simply make space available for the system to use when next required. The data remains on the disk. Readily available software tools can be used to restore the data. Some are even free.
When data is deleted, all that actually happens is that the computer marks the space as available for reuse - it does not remove the data. The only way to remove it is to overwrite it. But failing to delete data may result in identity theft, financial loss, fraud or blackmail. Such concerns have prompted Microsoft to add a drive encryption feature called BitLocker into its new Windows Vista system to protect data on a PC.
According to Nick Coleman, chief executive of the Institute of Computer Security Professionals, the Glamorgan research highlights a glaring problem for the computer industry. "This is about how you manage data to the end of its life and what is best practice. People are used to buying shredders to get rid of paper information; now they need to be pointed in the direction of properly accredited people who they know are competent to destroy the data for them."
There are disk wiping utilities and programs available that will erase data if correctly used. Some programs erase the entire disk, while others allow you to select which files or folders to erase. It is important that the utility or program provide an option to erase free space.
Life Cycle Services has a list of data removal programs and instructions at:
www.howtowipeyourdrive.com
No, just be sure and "delete" your information before you format and it is gone for ever.......not.
I like pgp's wipe program, up to 33 passes, on a multigig HD though, I feel for ya!
Quick formatting and repartitioning simply gets rid of the areas of the drive which describe how the data is stored, not the data itself. There are utilities that can scan through the drive and recover things that are not in the file table. If you do a full format (not a quick format), then yes, the average person will not be able to get the data back because it should all have been set to 0s. The government can still get data off of it, because there is still some residual magnetic signal left from the previous write, and if you know that every byte has been overwritten with a 0, and if you have the facilities, you can recover the data. If you really need to hide something from big brother, you overwrite the drive with random bits.
I routinely recover data from reformatted hard dives. In fact, in most cases, it's actually easier to recover the data if you DO format it.
The package also includes a free space wiping utility. It's best done while you sleep — it takes hours on a big disk.
Every byte, excluding SOME damaged sectors, which is usually a very small amount of data. Ouick format, full format, low level format, makes no difference. I even recover data from drives with bad drive motors and fried circuts IF someone is willing to pay for it.
Dumb question here:
Can a hard drive, be truly destroyed by an hour or so, in a medium size campfire?
lolz
I am absolutely confident that no one will ever retrieve data off of any of the small slags of melted aluminum I pull out of the ashes the next day.
Usually, yes. But you'd better take a good look to make sure the case is melted, at least partially, and the platters inside are no flatter than a potatoE chip. You'd do best to fish the drive out of the fire while hot, and drop it in a bucket of cold water to make sure the platters shatter.
It costs about $9 for a #6 torx screwdriver, I believe that is the proper size, and you remove the HD and remove the screws and take the cover off and take out a half a dozen other screws and you can then remove the platters. Once you remove the platters, they are quite easy to melt down if they are metal, if they are ceramic, they can be pounded to powder in short order. Only when they are physically destroyed by grinding, melting, or total destruction are they safe from being recovered.
Back in about 1988, I got a call from my brother, who is a lawyer. He was meeting with a client who was leaving her job at an ad agency (or something) on less than favorable terms. She had a Mac that belonged to her employer and was worried they'd go over it and find stuff she'd deleted. So, what could I recommend?
At the time, I was into mainframes and Unix, and I had only a passing familiarity with Macs and PCs. I didn't know of any utilities, free or otherwise, and Google was still about a decade into the future.
So, I advised her to take an innocuous file and use the Finder's duplicate facility to duplicate it. Then duplicate the file and its copy. Then duplicate the resulting files. Until the drive fills up. Then delete the bunch and do it a gain a few times, each time starting with a file of a different size. I never did hear if they found anything.
potatoE
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ROFL!!
The water seems like a smart idea. For the campfire too. :)
When I lived in Fort Worth there was a company near my house that specialized in recovering data from hard drives burnt in building fires. Buildings burn hotter than brush.
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