How do you wipe your HDD (windows 8.1)

[Aytex]

Friend is about to wipe and I want to make sure he does it right

 

*note he only has one HDD with his OS and all his shit, He has his CD and key

[TheAmazingCookieFromSquare]

U go make a right click then you press format

[Tmt97]

Just mail it to the NSA, they will take care of it for you.

[Aytex]

U go make a right click then you press format

You sure?

[Naeaes]

U go make a right click then you press format

 

 

You sure?

That doesn't do jack. Every bit of data s still there. I'll edit to elaborate. Just wait a bit. I'll try to be thorough.

 

Edit:

Ok, so the data on the HDD is written in 'ones and zeroes'. That's how the CPU sees them. Physically they're variances in the strength of the magnetic field around the disk on the HDD. I'll get back to this.

Every file you have on the drive is split into two. On one side there's the data. Say, in a photo, the data could be a numerical value for the color in each pixel. You got your reds and pinks and blues there.

Then there's separate info like 'this file starts form bit number 10100101 and is 10010111 bits long' 'this file has the .JPG extension' 'this file is called My_awesome_photo' 'it is not allowed to write over the bits of this file' and so on and so on. 

When you simply delete a file it's only 'hidden' from the folder it resided in and 'made visible' in the recycle bin. When you empty the recycle bin you simply chage the value for that one bit of info 'it is ok to write over the bits of this file'

So nothing is actually written over the bits. It's just ok to do so. And after time it'll happen but it's random, exactly when. But so long as it doesn't, the data is still there. Every blue, pink and red just as you left them.

 

When you format a drive, you forget about the entire glossary of where you can write and where you can. Formatting creates a new glossary. But still, the data is there. It's all there. And it can be un-formatted with simple software so long as the crucial info about the old formatting table hasn't been overwritten by happenstance. 

 

Wiping the drive actually does something. It ignores the info about where you can or cannot write and simply writes over every bit. Either all ones or all zeroes or randomly. If you let a wipe pass, you are somewhat guaranteed to have completely lost or severily corrupted your data. You're finally done. 

 

Exept that you're not. Those variances in the magnetic field I mentioned... The thing is the ones and zeroes aren't exactly like 1 magnetic unit (I'll call it MU. I can't remember what unit measures magnetic field strength) or 0 MU. It can be 0,9 MU and still be regarded as 1 or 0,1MU and be regarded as 0. There's a threshold value somewhere in between.

The nasty thing is that when you write a one bit ovet a one bit it increases the magnetic strength of that bit just a little. So every 1MU goes to 1,1MU. Every 0MU goes to 1MU too but there still is that tiny little bit of difference. The same goes in reverse for the zero bits.

The head on a HDD can't tell the difference. But there are laboratory-grade devices that can easily tell the difference. So they rip out the disk, put it in their machine, read it, do the math to turn every 1,1MU to one bits and every 1MU to zero bits and BAM! There's your data! All of it right there. Every blue, every red, every pink right there. ready to be un-formatted and recovered.

So do it twice? 1,1MU hops to 1,2MU. What originally was a zero is now 1,1MU. See where I'm getting at? The difference makes all the difference.

 

So to counter this, you wipe and wipe and wipe some more. No other way around it. Tens of times. Make a mess of it. Vary between all ones, all zeroes, patterns and randoms. Especially random. It makes the most mess but one random pass can also leave data untouched so especially all zeroes and all ones too. The more you want to make your data disappear, the more you wipe. To get it all jumbed up so that no logic can get it figured out. If it's incriminating data or important business data you don't want to end up in other people's hands, physically destroy the disk to make sure.

 

Tl;Dr: So wiping is more than just formatting. Way more. I'm personally satisfies in the 35 pass wipe in CCleaner.  I've tried recovering data myself after that and always failed. But I haven't had the laboratory-type recovery done to a wiped disk so I can't exactly tell if CCleaner is foolproof. It takes a long time but at least I sleep soundly. Also I barely care, so someone else could perhaps propose some other software.

[Guest]

Is he disposing of it? Or just wants it clear for other uses? 

 

If he's getting rid of it, DBAN is a good bet. Might take a while though, so it's best to do it late at night. 

 

Or, if you don't need it, kill it with fire. 

 

EDIT: For reference, formatting will only reinitialise the file system, the data will physically still be on the drive until it's overwritten. Hence why the military don't just format their drives... They rewrite over every bit, over and over, kill it with plastic explosives, kill it with fire, then whatever else lol

[Aytex]

That doesn't do jack. Every bit of data s still there. I'll edit to elaborate. Just wait a bit. I'll try to be thorough.

 

Is he disposing of it? Or just wants it clear for other uses? 

 

If he's getting rid of it, DBAN is a good bet. Might take a while though, so it's best to do it late at night. 

 

Or, if you don't need it, kill it with fire. 

no he wants to just i guess format it and reinstall windows, do a clean wipe basically

[ForsakenLive]

With a piece of cloth, it gets all the dust out!

 

jokes aside, I use http://sourceforge.net/projects/disc-wipe/

It's a free, open source utility that gets the job done. You can set it to do several passes.

[Guest]

 

no he wants to just i guess format it and reinstall windows, do a clean wipe basically

 

 

Then formatting will suffice. In the Windows setup, you can format the drive (I think it's in Custom or Advanced setup, something like that) 

[Aytex]

Then formatting will suffice. In the Windows setup, you can format the drive (I think it's in Custom or Advanced setup, something like that) 

alright, thanks

[NanoTech56]

get a strong magnet and put it on the hard drive 

[TheAmazingCookieFromSquare]

You sure?

Yes im sure

[SansVarnic]

Get yourself a big a$$ magnet.....

This does work and is the most efficient way to wipe a drive.

 

The US Army passes all its drives through a electromagnetic pulse generator (12 pulses are done) and then runs the drive through a cutter. This is done for drives that wont be reused.

 

 

 

 

   

[SansVarnic]

U go make a right click then you press format

 

Make sure it is a Full Format as a Quick Format will only erase the index.

A Full Format will Ease the entire drive, essentially re-writes the drives sectors using FAT Tables, but this only makes a single pass, you will have manually run the format 2 more times to fully achieve a non recoverable drive.

A drive wipe is the exact same thing but it will automatically run multiple time with you having to do it yourself.

(Some information can still be recovered but you need the right equipment to do it and that is hard to get and expensive)

 

You sure?

 

 

That doesn't do jack. Every bit of data s still there. I'll edit to elaborate. Just wait a bit. I'll try to be thorough.

 

It does the job exactly as designed.

 

@Aytex if you want to do a full wipe where as nothing can be retrieved you have several options.

1) do a Full Format but select FAT then Reformat into NTFS. This will do what you need and nothing is recoverable and you don't need to download anything third party.

2) If you have Bit locker on your windows Encrypt your drive as this will wipe your drive to the point that nothing can be recovered that was on there previously.

3)Download and run http://sourceforge.net/projects/disc-wipe/

4)Download this https://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/ and run it. I t will rewrite you drive using 0's multiple times.

5)Download another third party Software to do the job.

 

*edit to add info I left out..

[SansVarnic]

@Aytek

Make sure you are follow your own threads 

[Universal_Cereal_Bus]

It's ironic how when your data becomes corrupted by accident its so much harder to recover your stuff than when you're actually trying to get rid of it.