Don't leave data on old hard drives

Does anyone have a link to the Windows Eraser program mentioned in the article? I'm particularly interested in any disk wiping program that can be embedded within another application or integrated easily.

Chris

theres a lot of tools for cleaning the drives... I've found and tested a lot of them and I see one rule: every new recovery app is fowarded by a cleaning program.. both are getting stronger and stronger - but we cant be sure if someone wont use a better program for recovery than we had cleaning. My solution is: get the hammer and smack the drive into pieces (even if you'll destro the electronics theres a possibility of getting a new electronics from another drive and restroring the data (been there, done that;)). A quite easy and fast way to kill the drive is to drop it a few times while formating. Its a good way to get a new drive too - just dont scratch it ;) some ppl told me that giving the drive an electric shock will do the trick - but you have to remeber that:
-you'll never know which part/parts of the drive will be damaged
-its quite risky (especially with 220V ;))
-the drive will look like an damaged drive - the potential hacker will know what happened to it

There are a few other methods (like strong magnets) but they are more compicated and take more time (I still think that the good old hammer is the best solution)

Best of luck

We never dispose of any HDD's ever. Once they come in house that is where they stay and any computers that are sold off for tax purposes and the like always have new unformatted HDD's fitted.

Occasionally a few HDD's are used by the IT staff as required but again as these are all trusted people who could quite easily get the data anyway I don't see this as a problem. But even then they are wipped with the best wippping software available and even thn are not considered as clean.

I would like to relate an interesting true story here on this very topic. Last year the South Australian Government sold off some computers from a non-secure site so they where not considered as a security risk in any form. They didn't even take the necessary measures of wipping the HDD's but just deleting all the work files on the drives. However they did leave the Address books intact and sold these computers off at auction. This is normal Government pratice and they thought nothing more about it until the State Premier started getting e-mails asking for money.

After a lengthy Police investigation they found that one of these computers had been bought at auction by a guy for his 12 year old son. What found very interesting about the whole case was that the State Government expended more money on the investigation than they got for selling the computers in the first place. Of course they could do nothing about the child as he never broke any laws he only asked for money without any threats and it has already been rulled in Courts over here that when you sell a computer any recovered data becomes the property of the new owner.

Now while this wasn't a real problem in this case what would be the result if a home computer that was used for "On Line Banking" was sold off and all the banking Data was recovered by the buyer who would then have complete access to the previous owners bank details and accounts to do with what they liked.

While this is a much discussed subject here at TR it appears that not many people are aware of the potential problems and even fewer are interested. Perhaps that is why there are so many discussions on this very topic here.

Col

now i recieve this email after i already sold my old laptop, is there anyway i can protect myself and my new laptop???? please help

I heartily agree that there are too many old hard drives out there with too much old data left on them. I discovered that this is also true with machines that are replaced in physician's offices, you know, the folks who are so nit-pickingly careful with information due to HIPPA guidelines.

I recently talked to a physician friend who had just repllaced his computer. I asked him what he did to assure that the old data had been erased completely from the hard drive. He gave me a blank stare.

After I reminded him about the perils of allowing that data to fall into the wrong hands, I got his permission to use Darik's Boot and Nuke on the hard drive. Problem solved.

This could ultimately be a real serious problem for physicians who allow this confidential info to be released without their knowlege.

Gerra

I use Symantec's gdisk.exe utility that is distributed with their Ghost software. This utility does a number of things similar to the famous fdisk, but it also provides a diskwipe feature, either quick or to the DOD standard.

I contract my services out for new systems rollout and then retun ordispose of unwanted equipment, but firts run this utility (off a boot disk) on everysingle peice of equipment.

For every application to delete files, there is one to recover the files you deleted.

A couple of years back I helped my Coast Guard unit "declassify" some of our old workstations. The Government regs we were given made the decision pretty easy. Destroy the hard drives as completely as possible. Luckily we had no shortage of guys more than happy to pound them into the concrete. We even used cutters on the disks once the case went to pieces. It was fun.

how do I get a copy of the article? I have deleted the original email. What was the free software recommended?