how to completely "Clean" my hard drive?.

[RyuKaze]

a free open source program beats a $40 closed source program anyday of the week in my book.

Precisely.

What's more, if you compare the features side-by-side, DBaN certainly is superior to the free version of KillDisk, and even against the pay-for version, it does not lack the USEFUL features in relation to KillDisk.

Why pay $40 for a program which supports a few more security standards (which, to be honest, do YOU know the difference between them?) One of the best options - DoD 5220.22 M is present in both options; so $40 for this feature or $0 - You decide.

 

[porkar]

If you want to upgrade from e.g. Vista to W7 do you need to wipe your hard drive first or does the W7 disc take care of that for you? Will it totally remove all the detritus of the previous OS? (please forgive me, I am not a technogeek).

 

[guy]

If you want to upgrade from e.g. Vista to W7 do you need to wipe your hard drive first or does the W7 disc take care of that for you? Will it totally remove all the detritus of the previous OS? (please forgive me, I am not a technogeek).

It depends on what you mean by "wipe".

During setup, choose the Custom (Advanced) install method, then select Drive options (advanced). You can then choose to Format your disk:

• A Quick Format will rewrite only the old file table. The old files are not erased, but are no longer accessible directly, but can usually be recovered using basic file recovery tools.
• A Full Format will rewrite both the old file table and existing files. The old files are 0-filled, but can still be recovered by advanced forensic methods.

If you need to ensure that the old files absolutely are not accessible under any circumstances (which is what is meant by "erased/cleaned" in this thread), you will need to rely on another program such as DBaN before installing W7.

Note: When moving from 32bit Vista → 32bit W7, or from 64bit Vista → 64bit W7, you may be giving the option to Upgrade your installation. This option will not erase any user files. When moving from 32bit → 64bit you will not be given the Upgrade option.

Additionally, W7 may allow you to install a new copy of W7 without formatting the disk. In this case, all of your old files will simply be moved to a WINDOWS_OLD folder, which of course means no data is erased.

 

[porkar]

Thanks that answers my question.
Btw, I made a disc of DBaN, but I could not get it to boot my computer.

 

[Rollyco]

Full Format does not zero-write your hard drive if your boot disc is Windows XP, so take care.

For DBaN, use ImgBurn. Choose the "Write image file to disc" mode, point it to your dban-2.2.6_i586.iso file, and burn to a CD-R using a moderate speed setting. And don't do anything on your computer while it's burning.

 

[guy]

Full Format does not zero-write your hard drive if your boot disc is Windows XP, so take care.

Good to know. Hopefully someone won't use a XP boot disc when trying to install W7. :evillaugh:

 

[porkar]

Thanks Rolly, I hope I can get it right. I am more 'ancient Greek' than 'modern geek.' iripi:

 

[BudEWiser]

Get any linux distro that runs live CD...
Make sure the hard drive you want to destroy is the only one connected (so you don't fuck up).
find your drive by opening a console

dmesg | egrep hd

to find IDE disks

dmesg | egrep sd

to find scsi disks (usb drives are considered scsi disks in linux)
make note as to what it is (usually hda, but with some sata could be sda)
enter the following

dd if=/dev/urandom of=dev/hda

of course use in place of hda use what ever drive you found using the dmesg comand.

Sit back and wait... it will do about 1GB every 4 minutes so you will have some idle time on your hands. What this does, is fill the drive with pure random garbage, bit by bit.
Most linux wipe utilities will use this method, but just provide a GUI to do so.

 

[Syobon]

or you can install truecrypt, then choose the wipe mode to overwrite 3x or 7x, should be enough and all your files became encrypted for ever.

 

[padfoot]

Note that to delete ALL traces of file and file names, you will need to do a low level overwrite. Using tools like Eraser to erase free space, slack space... WILL NOT remove the metadata and registry values.

The safest way is to overwrite the entire hdd with data. There is alot of controversy regarding the number of times to overwrite, but from the forensic pov, just one pass of random data is enough to erase everything. Note : If you use one pass of zero or ones, there is still a 0.000000000001 % of recovering data using magnetic microscopy. But its too expensive to be considered as an option.

Here it is:

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdb bs=8b conv=notrunc

Istead of using dd, you could use "dcfldd", which is dd with a status interval so you can see the progress
dcfldd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdb statusinterval=10 bs=10M conv=notrunc

Note : notrunc is required so that slack space in each blocks are not skipped.

OR

You can use this commmand to mark out the bad sectors and do some erasing at the same time!
badblocks -w -p 0 -s /dev/sdb

 

[chippy]

From what I've read, a simple LiveCD of any Linux distro and a few basic console commands are all that is needed to do a (purportedly and believably) single-pass overwrite of a drive or even a single partition.
As a Linux user of 20 years now (I started with 0.99pl13) I can attest to not only the straightforward (i.e. "It Just Works") operation of Linux tools, but also to the safety (mind you, "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" so make sure you interpret that grep output correctly!!) of using them for critical operations.
A bootable Linux system should be considered mandatory for everyone. Sorry the tools to make using it aren't exactly Windoze-level-dumbed-down, but given the potential downside should be enough for anyone to learn just a few console commands.

Now...if only someone out there could port MeguIV or--better yet--MeguVit to Linux, I'd have a lot more to contribute to this community than my sycophantic blather about operating systems...

 

[C@ctus]

Get one of those high powered VHS demagnetizer, plug it in and turn those sectors inside-out. Guarantee the HD will be good as new.

I nothing like using a real tool to clean a HD.

 

[yukorin]

is there anything usefull for mac?

 

[voltesv]

using ccleaner. any feedback and opinions for this?

 

[guy]

CCleaner is good for basic housekeeping (deleting temporary/cache files, etc). But if you need to secure-erase your hard drive, you really ought to go for a proper program like DBAN.

 

[voltesv]

CCleaner is good for basic housekeeping (deleting temporary/cache files, etc). But if you need to secure-erase your hard drive, you really ought to go for a proper program like DBAN.

they do have a wipe option- you can see it at the settings. not sure if you're aware of that. i use 3 passes wipe and wipe mft free space.

is that ok? thanks

 

[guy]

Yes I'm aware of the wipe option, but 3-pass on MFT and free space is a really conservative method (ie: not very effective). When you use your computer, temporary and cache files are regularly deleted and overwritten, so it is already relatively difficult to recover those files, even without erasing free space. But the files that aren't deleted don't get erased, so if there is any other file you are unaware of that isn't deleted, its area won't get erased, and you are still left vulnerable. (Think of it like cleaning every part of your room that doesn't have furniture; the "free" areas are cleaned, but you can still have dust under your couch, etc.)

The only way to be sure is to perform a complete erase using DBAN. Or sandbox your apps in an encrypted container, or just encrypt your whole hard drive altogether.

 

[Ceewan]

or just encrypt your whole hard drive altogether.

The best possible option IMO, however you might want to keep a back-up hard drive, (also encrypted). Encrypted hard drives are vulnerable to loss of data in power outages. Also a remember to use long passwords as most modern day encryptions are unbreakable but the passwords are not. One must take the good with the bad I am afraid.

 

[Rollyco]

I did a Gutmann 35 pass wipe on a set of files...then I ran PC Tools Recovery. Every single file came back lickety split.

"File" wiping on any variety of Windows is not enough to defeat forensic retrieval, as you so easily discovered. "Drive" wiping is what you want. It's all or nothing.

 

[patton]

What are your opinions on the effectiveness of 'Evidence Eliminator' and 'File Shredder' ?

i don't recommend File Shredder. most of the time i can recover deleted files (shredded by File Shredder) using DiskDigger

For God's sake...don't let windows "index" your drive. If you downloaded a curious file with intensions to keep it, please convert the video. There could be a hash algorithm in the digital soup of the video calling INTERPOL or the FBI while you watch.

i'm really interested with this statement..
is it possible? can you enlighten me more, or perhaps any articles about it?