writing zero's to a windows C: drive

[Californio]

Looking for a bootable that will write zero's (multiple passes). Need to "init" several windows machines.

[superbarnie]

Darik's Boot And Nuke

[Californio]

Thank You

[billofrights]

I use Spinrite at work, but in the past the Ultimate Boot CD has worked well, it's free and has several disk-wiping utilities.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

[JDay]

http://www.esecurityplanet.com/windo...rd-drives.html

Or you can just encrypt the drive from the start and not have to worry about it.

[the86d]

Originally Posted by Californio

Looking for a bootable that will write zero's (multiple passes). Need to "init" several windows machines.

Originally Posted by superbarnie

Darik's Boot And Nuke

Multiple pass wipes are useless, a complete waste of your valuable time, and just as effective as a drive zeroing.
NO data has EVER been recovered that has been overwritten (aside from maybe bad sectors marked by smart, but if anyone knows a way to zero bad sectors marked by smart, I would live to read how).

I just boot to Slackware's first CD, or DVD, and some-seconds later (Slackware has one of the fastest boots to a cli of most distros, and no GUI boot/lag time for zeroing drives) it's done booting and do a:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda
for the 1st drive detected...

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb
for the second...

If you have to do a bunch, just plug them all into a machinga and do a bunch at the same time:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda &
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb &
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc &
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdd &
clear

THEN you get a clean screen that only shows status of when they are done, and once you get all 4 you are done with all of them.

If you have multiple drives plugged in of different sizes and unsure which one is which:
fdisk -l

If you have multiple drives plugged in, makes sure you know which is which if you need to keep any data, as Windows has been known to swap drive letters if you plugged drives in later. Slackware is usually pretty good at making the 1st drive detected the lowest letter (i.e. /dev/sda). When in doubt, just unplug any drives you wish to keep data on before attempting.

[bigbearbear]

We use a drive shredding service when hardware comes back to us due to customer upgrading to newer products. These guys are not bad:
http://www.esolutionsusa.com/hard-drive-destruction.php

$7.50 per drive, not bad at all I think.

[sholling]

Originally Posted by the86d

Multiple pass wipes are useless, a complete waste of your valuable time, and just as effective as a drive zeroing.
NO data has EVER been recovered that has been overwritten (aside from maybe bad sectors marked by smart, but if anyone knows a way to zero bad sectors marked by smart, I would live to read how).

So I take it you're an NSA spook since you just know for sure that no data has EVER been recovered.

[JDay]

Originally Posted by sholling

So I take it you're an NSA spook since you just know for sure that no data has EVER been recovered.

There's been plenty of research on this topic. A simple Google search will yield the results.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

[sholling]

Originally Posted by JDay

There's been plenty of research on this topic. A simple Google search will yield the results.

If you say so. Data may not be easily recoverable but I'll stick with 3 pass until DOD blesses off one-pass. Now if you'd said that one-pass is probably good enough for the average joe you'd have made sense, but such definitive statements as no data has ever been recovered sound silly on their face. I would never deal with a bank or financial services company that did not use at least 3 passes or better yet physically destroy the platters.

[JDay]

Originally Posted by sholling

If you say so. Data may not be easily recoverable but I'll stick with 3 pass until DOD blesses off one-pass. Now if you'd said that one-pass is probably good enough for the average joe you'd have made sense, but such definitive statements as no data has ever been recovered sound silly on their face. I would never deal with a bank or financial services company that did not use at least 3 passes or better yet physically destroy the platters.

Ask any data recovery firm and they will tell you they cannot recover data that has been overwritten. The DoD standard is outdated, it was written back when it was possible to recover data that had been overwritten. Hard drives have changed quite a bit over the years.

EDIT: And if you're going by DoD standards you better shred the drives and incinerate them after you're done with your multiple pass wipe.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

[Deadbolt]

awwww man this thread really makes me happy i got out of hardware

[olhunter]

Originally Posted by JDay

Ask any data recovery firm and they will tell you they cannot recover data that has been overwritten. The DoD standard is outdated, it was written back when it was possible to recover data that had been overwritten. Hard drives have changed quite a bit over the years.

We do that and he's right. Never going to recover it. Not even with a electron microscope. The narrowing of the tracks and the precision eliminated the 'wobble' that allowed us to do that in the past. One pass and it's gone.

Maybe on a 520MB drive from 1994, but not many of those left.