Software to make Hard-Drive's and Pen-Drive's recover not possible

Hi guys,

I've used KillDisk, the free method. The software has some methods of erasing data and making recover difficult (or maybe impossible?). Thing is that in the free version, you are only allowed to use one method, probably not the best one. So I'd like to know if there is a similar software for free.

Thank you

 

Platters? Personally, I would download Jetico's BCWipe Total Wipeout Trial, and wipe the Hard Disks. One pass pseudo-random is fine. It will also wipe the DCO and HPA. If you plan on doing this regularly, you'd have to buy it. But if you're just throwing out/recycling/selling old disks...the trial is fine.

For USB, any of the free cleaners, like Eraser, or Privazer, should be fine. Realize that with Flash, you can never be sure you got 100% of the data though...unless you use mfg supplied tools. For USB sticks, I'd just crush and melt with today's prices

PD

 

DBAN is best. http://www.dban.org/.

Despite what other more paranoid people would have you believe, (1)(Pass 0) is all you need.

 

I personally am a fan of the following:

http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

 

DBAN was at one time, but I agree with Pauly and think that BCWipe Total Wipeout is far superior these days. The development is constant and supports HPA and has some other advanced methods for dealing with SSD, etc. Anybody who has been around government agencies will know it is the standard for several departments of the U.S. government (which has made Jetico a lot of money). It's good software - no question about it.

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I think host based wiping has the potential to be thorough and in practice might even frequently be thorough. However, having been trained to try to identify, and never dismiss, worst case scenarios I would be concerned about those potential situations where it would NOT be thorough. Possible reasons might include a host wiping software shortcoming, drive firmware shortcoming, damage which makes previously written areas at least temporarily inaccessible to the host but subsequently accessible to another host or more sophisticated approach, and yes even drives that have been purposely rigged to retain data with the hope or expectation that they will be recovered.

Only the user would know what has been stored on the device and thus what the consequences might be if some of that data were recovered. Its up to them to do the probability & consequences calculations. In general though, I would suggest... certainly when the device is about to leave the hands of a genuinely trustworthy party... go ahead and perform host based wiping if you wish but also include physical destruction. I think there are many shredding companies with this capability and I've even seen it built into some shredding trucks so they can handle both documents and hard drives. Coming to a shred fest near you quite possibly. One can also carrying out pretty effective physical destruction with just common hand tools and a bit of elbow grease.

Of course, one can reduce the need for such steps if they reliably and very strongly encrypt all data before it is ever written to and stored on the device. Which seems like a good thing to do for other reasons as well (theft mitigation for example). So plan ahead for the next time.

 

I still prefer DBAN, has worked for many years and still works. Go with what you know I guess.

 

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