HDD cleaning

[Steve Randles]

I've recently bought a second hand HD and now want to totally clean it. Formatting will do that I know, but I believe that traces of someone elses files will be left on there and could be recovered and attributed to me, I've even heard that some viri can remain on the drive. What would be my best course of action?

 

Steve...

[Andy_1984]

when you are formatting the drive select to DELETE the partition, this removes all the files from the hard drive before it installs the new operating system, some files will remain from previous owner but you need something like an electron microscope to get to it and you will never ever see it while using windows and wont make a reappearance.

 

another way is to totaly fill the hard drive to its max capacity forcing out old stuff then format again, theres probably software that can fill the hard drive with useless junk files filled with 0's or something but not somthing i use because i like to look at what other people have had on their hard drive

Edited February 27, 2007 by Andy_1984

[corydoras]

I've recently bought a second hand HD and now want to totally clean it. Formatting will do that I know, but I believe that traces of someone elses files will be left on there and could be recovered and attributed to me, I've even heard that some viri can remain on the drive. What would be my best course of action?

 

Steve...

Format it and then forget it.

[Steve Randles]

Format it and then forget it.

 

I intend to use this in a USB caddy as an external/portable drive, and it will be connected to other peoples/client computers...hence the required total cleaning. Ive found a program that will overwrite all data overnight, safely and securely using the method Andy described, cheers Andy.

 

Steve...

[chesters1]

format it then drag the contents of a few dvds to it to fill it then format again ,it will stop any "unformat" or basic recovery progs but ofcourse there will always be a few bits of recoverable data on there for the high end software but in such small pieces it would be hardly worth it.

[corydoras]

I intend to use this in a USB caddy as an external/portable drive, and it will be connected to other peoples/client computers...hence the required total cleaning. Ive found a program that will overwrite all data overnight, safely and securely using the method Andy described, cheers Andy.

 

Steve...

Do what you want Steve, but IMO you are wasting your time. All this rubbish about filling the drive with dvd's full of data and re-formatting is totally unnecessary.

Edited February 28, 2007 by corydoras

[chesters1]

if he wants to make sure its clean then a format does nothing sir all a format does is overight the beginning of the drive where the listing for the data is kept the data stays exactly where it was,this "rubbish" overwrites not only the formatted sector plus the rest of the disk making it harder to get the original data ,if for some reason his drive is involved via his work in something that needs verification that his drive didnt do it then the cleaner it is the better ,who knows what it earlier owner was up to.

theres software available that will get data after several formats from disks.

his program he found just writes data to all the disk exactly the same as filling it with "rubbish" but mines to hand rather than looked for and downloaded if its needed in a hurry.

Edited February 28, 2007 by chesters1

[melpen]

You can do a low level format, which will erase everything, including partitions.

 

This will reset the HDD back to factory defaults.

 

Some bios will do a low level format but be warned low level formatting can take 24hours + depending on size of hardrive.

 

or possibly if you can get hold of the manufactures firmware you could re-flash firmware,

but if re-flashing fails could totally distroy HDD

 

But this is going to extremes.

[chesters1]

You can do a low level format, which will erase everything, including partitions.

 

This will reset the HDD back to factory defaults.

 

Some bios will do a low level format but be warned low level formatting can take 24hours + depending on size of hardrive.

 

or possibly if you can get hold of the manufactures firmware you could re-flash firmware,

but if re-flashing fails could totally distroy HDD

 

But this is going to extremes.

no belting it with a sledge hammer then putting it in sulphuric acid before driving over it with a road roller is going to the extreme!

[poledark]

Steve, in all seriousness, if you are going to use it for business or connecting it to other computers, then would it not be prudent to buy a new one? At least you will have the peace of mind that if something went wrong later (virus perhaps) then it won't be down to you.

 

Den