Hello All I've been asked to wipe a notebook HDD prior to the machine's sale - I know there are 26,000 threads about this but wondered what the view was regarding: diskpart.exe (from within WinPE) > clean all. I've done this numerous times on my own machines and I understand from reading that this should be sufficiently secure, but just wanted to check as it's not my machine! Thanks in advance philby
I think Erase Disk option from Parted Magic is enough, it uses dd to write zeroes on the disk. I use parted magic with the Internal Secure Erase command to wipe my SSD's and its blazing fast, but with a regular HDD that would be a different story. Here is a link on how to use Parted Magic Click
Thanks all - I realise that there are many utilities that will do the job, but was wondering whether the clean all command was considered adequate by members - I like to keep things as simple as possible... Anyway, I ran 2 passes of clean all - is there a simple way to verify that nothing is retrievable, (by your average PC shop Joe that is - not by Mossad)? Thanks philby
You can try Recuva to see if any files are recoverable, there are many similar data recovery programs out there, but this is the one i remember the most.
Ah yes, I know of Recuva - but wouldn't I need a way to boot and run ..? (I might be being thick here - I'm playing chess with my son and not really concentrating).
Use "DBAN" - Download Derriks Boot n Nuke - Burn to CD - Insert and boot of the CD - DBAN will appear - Choose the method option - Change the wipe to the RCMP method - Wipe it (Takes around 8 hours) Nothing will ever recover your stuff, don't worry about anything else I just used this last night to wipe my old Laptop, worked perfect. NOTE: Be careful with the Automatic option. (If you have USB hub or devices) un-plug all except your keyboard.
Yeah they are all Noobs, it's only you that isn't I must admit i've heard lots of good things about DBAN over the years, never used it myself though.
Diskpart.exe command 'clean' from a WINPE disc, wipes/zero's the partiton table, where 'clean all' zero's all data afaik. What does BDAN do better besides offering other wiping methods like DoD, PRNG stream etc? Or what does zero-ing with 'clean all' lack in your opinion? Doesn't it wipe unused disk space/slack space/unused MFT records etc? Why would using 'clean all' be a 'noob' solution?
Why would using 'clean all' be a 'noob' solution? Yes - that's what I was getting at really in my OP, why would clean all be considered insufficient? philby
I am aware of the many utilities - including DBAN - that can be used... The question relates specifically to the effectiveness of the clean all command. Baserk has echoed my question: What does zero-ing with 'clean all' lack in your opinion? That's really what I'm trying to get answered here - I'm not after a list of s/w recommendations... Thanks philby
Depending on who you listen to a zero-write is all that is needed to fully erase a hard drive. There are some that say even after doing that it is possible to recover data off a hard drive. There is a lot of conflicting opinions on it and I'm not sure you will get an consensus on it. I have even heard some claim that data recovery is possible after Heidi Eraser or DBAN has done a 3 round wipe. I even remember hearing one "expert" one time say you may could still retreive data on a drive that had had the Gutmann wipe done to it.
Fair enough - perhaps there's no technically definitive answer re. clean all after all. Cheers philby