Does formatting kill all data?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jay
  • Start date Start date
J

Jay

I want to give a company away.
Does deleting files and then formatting (c:>format D:) effectively clean up
all data to the extent that no other low level program can ever retrieve it
or view it?

Thanks
Jay.
 
Jay said:
I want to give a company away.
Does deleting files and then formatting (c:>format D:) effectively clean up
all data to the extent that no other low level program can ever retrieve it
or view it?
Click to expand...

No. To be safe, you should wipe the drive. If it's 8GB or less, try:
http://service.boulder.ibm.com/storage/hddtech/wipe.exe

Otherwise, get a linux boot disk:
http://www.toms.net/rb
and issue the command:
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda

In both cases, you should have no hard drive in the system other than
the one you want to erase.


-WD
 
Previously Will Dormann said:
Jay wrote:
Click to expand...
No.
Click to expand...

In fact the data will be intact, only the administrative info gets
overwritten. Commercial data recovery or a gifted amatour will
still get most/all data from the drives.
To be safe, you should wipe the drive. If it's 8GB or less, try:
http://service.boulder.ibm.com/storage/hddtech/wipe.exe
Click to expand...
Otherwise, get a linux boot disk:
http://www.toms.net/rb
and issue the command:
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda
Click to expand...

If you want id faster and less secure (not by much) use

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda
In both cases, you should have no hard drive in the system other than
the one you want to erase.
Click to expand...

.... since the above will erase the first drive and will not
be reversable. There is a rumour the CIA can still get the data,
but there is no confirmation. It might well be physically impossible.

Arno
 
If you want id faster and less secure (not by much) use

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda
Click to expand...

And be certain that the disk size is not reduced by a disk manager, or
that the Linux version used detects that, and use full disk size.
 
Jay said:
I want to give a company away.
Does deleting files and then formatting (c:>format D:) effectively clean
up all data to the extent that no other low level program can ever retrieve
it or view it?
Click to expand...

Nope. Use DISKTool at www.nu2.nu/utilities, erase option.
You can also checkout the drive with it afterwards.
 
And be certain that the disk size is not reduced by a disk manager, or
that the Linux version used detects that, and use full disk size.
Click to expand...

Are there any disk-managers that do not need to be executed
by the CPU?

Because no ordinary disk-manager will work under Linux,
unless Linux does not see it, i.e. it doesn not run on
the CPU/Mainboard. Linux even ignores the BIOS-Settings
when accessing a HDD. It just asks the HDD directly for
its size.

Arno
 
Are there any disk-managers that do not need to be executed
by the CPU?

Because no ordinary disk-manager will work under Linux,
unless Linux does not see it, i.e. it doesn not run on
the CPU/Mainboard. Linux even ignores the BIOS-Settings
when accessing a HDD. It just asks the HDD directly for
its size.

Arno
Click to expand...

If the Max Address of a disk is set, the full size must be enabled
before anything can be written to the end of the disk. Normally a disk
manager enables the full size during boot. Linux cannot be expected to
do that, but some versions may do it.
 
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