cleaning the disks completely - How do I do it?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Hi,
I have an old (6 years) computer and I want to give it away to charity.
But forst, I want to make sure the disks are completely erased in terms
of any data I may have on them.

How can I insure that the disks are completely cleaned of any personal data?


Thanks
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Paul S. wrote:
> Hi,
> I have an old (6 years) computer and I want to give it away to charity.
> But forst, I want to make sure the disks are completely erased in terms
> of any data I may have on them.
>
> How can I insure that the disks are completely cleaned of any personal
> data?
>
>
> Thanks

O.K., I should have been more specific. The computer is a Gateway, and,
I have the NT 4.0 installation disks. I have already re-formatted the D
drive using the NT "disk manager" program. So, I am pretty confident
that the D drive is a blank slate. But, the "Disk manager" won't let me
re-format the C drive since that's where the operating system "lives."

If I re-install the operating system will it re-format the C drive and
thus erase any traces of old data on the disks? And, if not, then what?

Thanks

Paul
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

"Paul S." <pauls@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:108d7er1lm74u5f@corp.supernews.com...
> Hi,
> I have an old (6 years) computer and I want to give it away to charity.
> But forst, I want to make sure the disks are completely erased in terms
> of any data I may have on them.
>
> How can I insure that the disks are completely cleaned of any personal
data?
>
>
> Thanks

http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/faq.php

This will do the job and do it very well.
--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Erasing the harddrive disks is NOT adequate; the data is still recoverable.
You need to use an OVERWRITING program that will write random characters
onto the entire harddrive at least six times.

--
DaveW



"Paul S." <pauls@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:108d7er1lm74u5f@corp.supernews.com...
> Hi,
> I have an old (6 years) computer and I want to give it away to charity.
> But forst, I want to make sure the disks are completely erased in terms
> of any data I may have on them.
>
> How can I insure that the disks are completely cleaned of any personal
data?
>
>
> Thanks
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Paul S. wrote:
> Hi,
> I have an old (6 years) computer and I want to give it away to charity.
> But forst, I want to make sure the disks are completely erased in terms
> of any data I may have on them.
>
> How can I insure that the disks are completely cleaned of any personal
> data?
>
>
> Thanks

Use one of a good many utilities that overwrites the data with 1's and
0's...preferably several times...

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Use Fdisk from Win98 Bootdisk, remove all partitions, then creat new one(s)
and format it, and then do again with Fdisk, remove all partitions, then
re-create new one(s) again, then format after reboot. This should be clean
even the first time unless they have pro stuff to find old datas, anyway,
why they want to do that? If you really need it to be clean, you can then
get pro software to wipe clean your hdd, only if you think its worth, fdisk
and fromating the HDD is good enough fro normal person not to be able to
retreive data.
"Paul S." <pauls@nospam.com> ???????:108d7er1lm74u5f@corp.supernews.com...
> Hi,
> I have an old (6 years) computer and I want to give it away to charity.
> But forst, I want to make sure the disks are completely erased in terms
> of any data I may have on them.
>
> How can I insure that the disks are completely cleaned of any personal
data?
>
>
> Thanks
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

NoDVD+/-R wrote:
> Use Fdisk from Win98 Bootdisk, remove all partitions, then creat new one(s)
> and format it, and then do again with Fdisk, remove all partitions, then
> re-create new one(s) again, then format after reboot. This should be clean
> even the first time unless they have pro stuff to find old datas, anyway,
> why they want to do that?

Wrong.

> If you really need it to be clean, you can then
> get pro software to wipe clean your hdd, only if you think its worth, fdisk
> and fromating the HDD is good enough fro normal person not to be able to
> retreive data.

Wrong.

> "Paul S." <pauls@nospam.com> ???????:108d7er1lm74u5f@corp.supernews.com...
>
>>Hi,
>>I have an old (6 years) computer and I want to give it away to charity.
>>But forst, I want to make sure the disks are completely erased in terms
>>of any data I may have on them.
>>
>>How can I insure that the disks are completely cleaned of any personal
>
> data?
>
>>
>>Thanks
>
>
>


--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Paul S. wrote:
> Paul S. wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> I have an old (6 years) computer and I want to give it away to
>> charity. But forst, I want to make sure the disks are completely
>> erased in terms of any data I may have on them.
>>
>> How can I insure that the disks are completely cleaned of any personal
>> data?
>>
>>
>> Thanks
>
>
> O.K., I should have been more specific. The computer is a Gateway, and,
> I have the NT 4.0 installation disks. I have already re-formatted the D
> drive using the NT "disk manager" program. So, I am pretty confident
> that the D drive is a blank slate. But, the "Disk manager" won't let me
> re-format the C drive since that's where the operating system "lives."
>
> If I re-install the operating system will it re-format the C drive and
> thus erase any traces of old data on the disks? And, if not, then what?
>
> Thanks
>
> Paul
>
>

Paul, data is easilly recoverable even after a reformat. To make it more
difficult, you'd want to use a program that overwrites the drive. I use
one from bootdisk.com called Wipe. It only overwrites the drive once, so
the data is still recoverable. A utility that overwrites it 7 times
makes it pretty unrecoverable, even by FBI standards. If you're happy to
take the chance of someone recovering your data, then there're plenty
of programs that can wipe the partition table from a bootable floppy or
cd. I use a windows98 boot floppy, which can be downloaded, and put Wipe
onto it, then wipe the drive, repartition, and reformat it. Any data
that's on the drive is still technically recoverable, but it won't be
exceptionally easy to do. A simple reformat is pretty simple to work
around, if you enjoy snooping. I've found some pretty sensitive stuff on
old hard drives that people have thrown out. That's why companies often
remove hard drives from computers prior to either disposing of them or
donating them to charity. It's too easy to recover information, and may
be too time consuming to effectively wipe every drive.

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

On 21-Apr-2004, sooky grumper <sookygrumper@fishies_.com> wrote:

> Paul S. wrote:
> > Paul S. wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >> I have an old (6 years) computer and I want to give it away to
> >> charity. But forst, I want to make sure the disks are completely
> >> erased in terms of any data I may have on them.
> >>
> >> How can I insure that the disks are completely cleaned of any personal
> >> data?
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks
> >
> >
> > O.K., I should have been more specific. The computer is a Gateway, and,
> > I have the NT 4.0 installation disks. I have already re-formatted the D
> > drive using the NT "disk manager" program. So, I am pretty confident
> > that the D drive is a blank slate. But, the "Disk manager" won't let me
> > re-format the C drive since that's where the operating system "lives."
> >
> > If I re-install the operating system will it re-format the C drive and
> > thus erase any traces of old data on the disks? And, if not, then what?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Paul
> >
> >
>
> Paul, data is easilly recoverable even after a reformat. To make it more
> difficult, you'd want to use a program that overwrites the drive. I use
> one from bootdisk.com called Wipe. It only overwrites the drive once, so
> the data is still recoverable. A utility that overwrites it 7 times
> makes it pretty unrecoverable, even by FBI standards. If you're happy to
> take the chance of someone recovering your data, then there're plenty
> of programs that can wipe the partition table from a bootable floppy or
> cd. I use a windows98 boot floppy, which can be downloaded, and put Wipe
> onto it, then wipe the drive, repartition, and reformat it. Any data
> that's on the drive is still technically recoverable, but it won't be
> exceptionally easy to do. A simple reformat is pretty simple to work
> around, if you enjoy snooping. I've found some pretty sensitive stuff on
> old hard drives that people have thrown out. That's why companies often
> remove hard drives from computers prior to either disposing of them or
> donating them to charity. It's too easy to recover information, and may
> be too time consuming to effectively wipe every drive.
>
> --
> spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

You need a program like Shred found @:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,13352,00.asp

rpilgrim7448@nospam-msn.com
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Just for information purposes, another tool I often use on hard drives
that I've come by second-hand is tomsrtbt. It's easiest to make from
within linux, and is a cut down linux that is bootable from a floppy (a
cdrom iso is also available, IIRC). Makes getting rid of all sorts of
partitions easy, as linux's fdisk program is more fully featured than
Microsoft's is. However, the Wipe program I mentioned in my last post
will completely overwrite the drive with a repeated data pattern,
including the mbr, so the partition table is lost in that case (again
IIRC). I have a series of floppies and cdroms with different hard drive
utilities. You might also see who manufactured your drive: manufacturers
sometimes make these disk wiping tools freely available for use with
their drives, along with hard drive testing utilities. I just went back
to bootdisk.com and the webmaster is still asking for a donation to
download the Wipe/Zap programs. I've downloaded so many things from his
website I was happy to make a donation when I first downloaded wipe/zap.

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Sooky Grumper:
Maybe for you, a truly inside out computer user, for my friends who works at
the charity, they don't know what does HDD do inside the PC. They are not
dum, they just use the computer to do what they need, not "playing" the
computer like you and myself. But I fully agree with your way of cleaning
the HDD totally! I have been using zap to wipe HDDs, but I have never tried
to retrieve data from a wiped HDD, I will try once, learning something new
everyday.
Anyway, you never know who will ended up looking at your good old harddrive.
Better safe then sorry.
"sooky grumper" <sookygrumper@fishies_.com>
???????:4086a542$1@quokka.wn.com.au...
> NoDVD+/-R wrote:
> > Use Fdisk from Win98 Bootdisk, remove all partitions, then creat new
one(s)
> > and format it, and then do again with Fdisk, remove all partitions, then
> > re-create new one(s) again, then format after reboot. This should be
clean
> > even the first time unless they have pro stuff to find old datas,
anyway,
> > why they want to do that?
>
> Wrong.
>
> > If you really need it to be clean, you can then
> > get pro software to wipe clean your hdd, only if you think its worth,
fdisk
> > and fromating the HDD is good enough fro normal person not to be able to
> > retreive data.
>
> Wrong.
>
> > "Paul S." <pauls@nospam.com>
???????:108d7er1lm74u5f@corp.supernews.com...
> >
> >>Hi,
> >>I have an old (6 years) computer and I want to give it away to charity.
> >>But forst, I want to make sure the disks are completely erased in terms
> >>of any data I may have on them.
> >>
> >>How can I insure that the disks are completely cleaned of any personal
> >
> > data?
> >
> >>
> >>Thanks
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Paul S. wrote:
> Hi,
> I have an old (6 years) computer and I want to give it away to charity.
> But forst, I want to make sure the disks are completely erased in terms
> of any data I may have on them.
>
> How can I insure that the disks are completely cleaned of any personal
> data?


Darik's Boot and Nuke:
http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Download, create bootable media, boot, and nuke!
(It's free)


-WD
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

>Darik's Boot and Nuke:
>http://dban.sourceforge.net/

If one wanted to clean a hard drive computer so as to install a fresh
copy of Windows XP Pro on it..... would it be a good idea to use
something like the above?
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Paul S. wrote:
> Hi,
> I have an old (6 years) computer and I want to give it away to charity.
> But forst, I want to make sure the disks are completely erased in terms
> of any data I may have on them.
>
> How can I insure that the disks are completely cleaned of any personal
> data?
>
>
> Thanks
Hi,
I am using two software tools that you guys recommended: Darik's Boot
and Nuke and "eraser"


Thanks for all the responses to my posting!

Paul
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

me6@privacy.net wrote:

>>Darik's Boot and Nuke:
>>http://dban.sourceforge.net/
>
>
> If one wanted to clean a hard drive computer so as to install a fresh
> copy of Windows XP Pro on it..... would it be a good idea to use
> something like the above?


It sure wouldn't hurt, but it sounds like overkill. Deleting the
partition with a bootdisk and fdisk would be *much* quicker. dban
overwrites the entire drive, as to eliminate any evidence of the data
written on it.


-WD
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Paul S. wrote:

> Hi,
> I am using two software tools that you guys recommended: Darik's Boot
> and Nuke and "eraser"
>
>
> Thanks for all the responses to my posting!


You're very welcome. All too often, the OP never bothers to follow up
to their own threads...


-WD
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Will Dormann wrote:
> me6@privacy.net wrote:
>
>>> Darik's Boot and Nuke:
>>> http://dban.sourceforge.net/
>>
>>
>>
>> If one wanted to clean a hard drive computer so as to install a fresh
>> copy of Windows XP Pro on it..... would it be a good idea to use
>> something like the above?
>
>
>
> It sure wouldn't hurt, but it sounds like overkill. Deleting the
> partition with a bootdisk and fdisk would be *much* quicker. dban
> overwrites the entire drive, as to eliminate any evidence of the data
> written on it.
>
>
> -WD

If data erasure isn't the objective, then I agree with Will here. The
WinXP setup procedure has a stage where you can repartition and reformat
the drive, so a separate disk for that is unnecessary.

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

> Hi,
> I have an old (6 years) computer and I want to give it away to charity.
> But forst, I want to make sure the disks are completely erased in terms
> of any data I may have on them.
>
> How can I insure that the disks are completely cleaned of any personal
data?
>
>
> Thanks

You need the good Data-Doctors help with this one.

http://www.datadocktorn.nu/index.php

If you follow his instructions to 'Defraggle your motherdisc'

http://www.datadocktorn.nu/us_frag1.php

I'm sure no one will be able to read your data.

Adam S

PS back up anything you want to keep before following the doctors
instructions :cool:
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

>You need the good Data-Doctors help with this one.
>
>http://www.datadocktorn.nu/index.php
>
>If you follow his instructions to 'Defraggle your motherdisc'
>
>http://www.datadocktorn.nu/us_frag1.php
>
>I'm sure no one will be able to read your data.
>
>Adam S
>
>PS back up anything you want to keep before following the doctors
>instructions :cool:
> ======================================

WARNING!

The web location above instructs you to disassemble your hard disk drive
after removing it from teh computer!!

Don't do it!!! You will destroy it if you do.

Jack
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 13:49:35 -0400, J. Yazel <jyazel@netset.com> wrote:

>>If you follow his instructions to 'Defraggle your motherdisc'
>>
>>http://www.datadocktorn.nu/us_frag1.php
>>
>
> WARNING!
>
> The web location above instructs you to disassemble your hard disk drive
> after removing it from teh computer!!
>
> Don't do it!!! You will destroy it if you do.

Feh. Spoilsport. :)

--
Robert B. Clark (email ROT13'ed)
Visit ClarkWehyr Enterprises On-Line at http://www.3clarks.com/ClarkWehyr/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom