Drive Cleaner / Data Recovery software

[Mark H]

Can anyone recommend software to clean a hard drive (ie make it impossible for data recovery software to retrieve deleted files) on a Vista PC? This is often a feature of data recovery software. :)

[grantglendinnin]

A severely big hammer, or to be more realistic, I've always used Dr. Preventor Data Recovery Preventor (http://www.bestshareware.net/download/data-recovery-preventor.htm) - apparently Vista compatible now, but have never tried as I use XP Pro.

Cheers,
Grant

[Rich Brady]

I attended a conference a few months back organised by ecrimeswales and they had various speakers.

One of the questions asked was the same as your post. The answer given, was that dispite all the software out there the only way to be absolutely sure is to smash the hard drive into tiny little pieces...

[NormanRouxel]

Acronis True Image Home 11 is not only an excellent backup program but has disk and file shredding too.

[grantglendinnin]

Rich,

Although you're technically correct - I suppose it depends on the severity of the data. If it's just random crap, I'd just use software to wipe it. Whereas if it had customer details, or any personal info, it'd be out with the hammer, I'm afraid.

:)

[Rich Brady]

True, but the OP did ask for software that would make it impossible for data recovery and I don't think that there is any out there. He even stated that the file shreading versions are not to be relied on.

[NormanRouxel]

Actually he said "make it impossible for data recovery software to retrieve deleted files" and I'd be pretty confident that decent software (e.g. Acronis) will do just that.

Recovering data regardless of cost (with millions of dollars worth of electron microscopy hardware and a huge amount of time) is a completely different proposition and probably not what we're considering here.

[Rich Brady]

I stand corrected

[grantglendinnin]

...is a completely different proposition and probably not what we're considering here.

But we could, if we want, but then again, it's Friday :D

[consciouspnm]

I use the Disk Wipe feature of ERD Commander, but if you want a full multi-pass wipe it may take several days.

[Paragon]

To truly make a hard drive unreadable (according to government security standards), probably extreme overkill for a home or small business PC. But this is my field of 'expertise'.

The hard drive should first be degaussed, a powerful magnet first erases all information from the disc surface.
http://www.veritysystems.co.uk/degaussers/degaussers.asp?sub_category=manual%20degausser

Then the drive platters must be destroyed or made unusable, with a hammer or a professional destroyer such as:
http://www.veritysystems.co.uk/degaussers/degausser.asp?id=1230

Software cannot make a hard drive truly unreadable but unless your holding government secrets or something, a hammer will do just fine and is very satisfying (wear goggles though).

[guccij]

I use DriveScrubber to free up space on drives (can also be used to wipe them but haven't used it for that) and Avanquest's DriveErase for cleaning hard drives of old PCs before passing them on. Works very well and the licence is for any number of PCs. Good value at £30.

[leehack]

I use DriveScrubber to free up space on drives.
I put the key in car, start it up and drive it off instead.

[Mark H]

Thanks everyone. The hammer is our usual trick when getting rid of PCs but we are talking a brand new £1,400 Sony laptop here. We run our laptops without data on them (they all link to a secured server in-house) so that it doesn't matter (from a data point of view) if they break or go missing. However a "silly billy" has copied 150Gb of said data, unencrypted, onto the D: drive in the process of moving data onto a backup drive. This D: drive would otherwise never be used, so new data will not be overwriting deleted files, which means that even if deleted, most of the files would be recoverable for the lifetime of the PC using off the shelf software, hence the need to scrub clean. I'll have a look at the software solutions mentioned.:)

[Duncan Rounding]

...However a "silly billy" has copied 150Gb of said data, unencrypted...

Which government department does he work in?

[Mark H]

Just now he's very close to not working anywhere........:D

[guccij]

I put the key in car, start it up and drive it off instead.I find depositing one child at the roadside every 10 miles or so does the same trick ... not for nothing do we have an MPV.

[leehack]

But their bike will still be left on the drive!

[guccij]

Er no - our friendly local druggie stole it :mad:

[grantglendinnin]

If we're talkin' about a fifteen hundred quid laptop, why not make certain it's unreadable. Don't waste £30 quid on software, waste it on a new hard drive. Simply replace the drives seems the logical solution now ;)

[Mark H]

Er no - our friendly local druggie stole it :mad:

This does not fit in well with our Switzerland fantasy. I'm thinking cheese, snow, logs, bottles of strong drink with little bits of gold foil floating round, you know?

[Mark H]

If we're talkin' about a fifteen hundred quid laptop, why not make certain it's unreadable. Don't waste £30 quid on software, waste it on a new hard drive. Simply replace the drives seems the logical solution now ;)

Interesting thought, but I'm sure the software will be good enough until the PC meets Mr Logsplitter in about 3 years.........

[guccij]

This does not fit in well with our Switzerland fantasy. I'm thinking cheese, snow, logs, bottles of strong drink with little bits of gold foil floating round, you know?It wasn't in Switzerland (where our bikes live in the cellar along with the wine, skis, spiders and when it rains heavily, about a foot of water). It was taken from outside our house in NW London despite it being locked round the pillar and to the wheelie bin with three separate locks :(

PS It did snow today though in our village in CH. Check out the webcams here (http://webcam.telechampery.ch/telechamp/webcam5/current.jpg) and here (http://webcam.telechampery.ch/telechamp/webcam2/current.jpg).

[Mark H]

Ah, my fantasy remains intact (I'll overlook the "spiders and when it rains heavily, about a foot of water"). Thank you Jules:)

[completerookie]

have you ever taken a hammer to an old hard disk, its quite satisfying when you do. :)

but at work, we have an even nicer way of stopping the little blighters getting hold of our data . . .

we partition it into two or more drives by taking an oxy-acetelene torch to it. :D
it's carefully placed in our large garage workshop vice and then we watch while all our hard work goes up in smoke,

I defy anyone to get any data off it,
talk to your local one man garage, I'm sure they'll be up for a "challenge"

If you are worried about the recycling implications, then let it cool down, put it in your re-cyling wheelie bin when youv'e finished, and the local authority will happily recycle it for you along with the beer bottes you had the night before (just be careful not to get yoghurt from the pots on the outer casing) - they just don't like that !

[NormanRouxel]

goes up in smokeI hope you're well upwind. There are some pretty exotic chemicals in HDD's.

I'll bet the spooks could still get some data of any bits of platter that were left. I remember the days of 9 track mag-tape when there was a little optical gadget like a jewellers loupe that you could press to the tape and see the data tracks (it had a polarised outer filter that was susceptible to magnetic fields and another one inside that was away from said field).

Scale that up a bit to electron microscopy and other more esoteric imaging and even the data left inside powered down chips is available.

[grantglendinnin]

I thought I had the cold, hence the sniffing.

But when push comes to shove, I investigated, and found this was the root cause of what I could smell:

http://www.appscout.com/images/spam%20boy.jpg