Attempting Data Destruction of HDD

[Fruhstuck]

Hello,

I recently have gotten a virus on my PC and although my free year subscription of Macafee has claimed to have not found any issues. There still are problems such as slow speeds and various other issues.

Anyway, the real issue here is that I have been trying to find a way to secure erase / do a full destruction or deletion of my HDD. That is to say that I want to rewrite the whole drive in 0's. My frustration is that I can't find any programs that work well. DBan supposedly does not completely rewrite a drive and it wont run on my laptop for some reason. I tried another program that many praise called HDD erase but it is very old and wont run on my computer without going through a process of creating separate programs to run off a CD etc. Finally, I read online about trying to use Windows new format command that rewrites a HDD in 0's or the command prompt Format C:/fs:NTFS/P:2 command. I was hoping for this to work but all it does is delete my separate windows partitioned drive with all the boot files. Then I can't start my computer because it doesn't detect windows but all my information is still on the drive.

Any ideas of programs I can use to completely erase a HDD or suggestions on how to use Windows format C:/fs:NTFS/P:2 command?

Thanks

 

[gmkos]

Hi,

There is no reason for DBAN not to work on your computer. Make sure you're creating the disc image properly. You've heard correctly that it won't completely erase the data on an HDD. Short of physical destruction of the drive (i.e. degaussing machine), a multi-pass erase (i.e. DBAN) is the best you can do, the more passes, the better.

 

[Fruhstuck]

In regards to Dban. The program is stored properly on the disc. I can run it on any desktop computer just fine. For some reason when I go to run it on my laptop it will boot but it wont run. It will just hang on the intro screen and display a name of some person and a copyright date.

In regard to wiping data. Maybe I'm miss informed but my understanding is that if you can run a secure erase or what some refer to as a data destruction, which will completely rewrite all data on the HDD to 0's. That's also exactly what I want to do, to rewrite all data into 0's which to my knowledge is to wipe the hard drive.

It also just occurred to me that I should post this. It's the link to the method I'm currently using to try and wipe my HDD using windows command prompt from a recovery disk.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/ht/write-zeros-format-command.htm

I'm using the command line Format C:/fs:NTFS/P:2. It does exactly what I want it to do. However, it wont format the right part of the drive. It will ask you to enter the volume name of the drive for it to format. I don't know the name to use so I use the command vol c: to find the name of my volume. It gives me the name of the partition of my hard drive that has the windows boot files on it. When entered as the volume name it will finally format the files but it only formats that volume which again has only the windows boot files on it. It will complete and it will say something like "Completed 100 mb wiped, 97.7 mb available." Then I'm left with a computer that wont boot but all the data still on the other partition, so I have to reinstall the boot up files using my windows disk.

 

[popatim]

To see your drive and volume names
- before you type format from the command line, type diskpart. This will bring you to the diskpart utility command line.

type list volume <enter> and it will show you all the drives, volumes, and letters assigned.

Locate the drive letter and volume name for the partition you want.

type Exit <enter> to exit the diskpart utility and return to the command line. run your format command using the correct letter & volume name. Type exit again to close the command line window when you are done.

You can also secure erase the entire drive right from the diskpart utility. See Below:

** Do not proceed if you plan on using your Restore partition on the factory harddrive to reinstall windows! This wipes EVERYTHING! **

instead of that format command, try the following from that same command line.
Diskpart <enter>
list disk <enter> {you should only see one drive and its probably disk 0}
select disk 0 <enter> { if your drive is not disk 0 then change the number}
cleanall <enter>

Now you wait for it to finish. It secure erases the entire drive and takes about 3hrs per TB. If you want to run a second pass then run the "clean all" command again because when it finished the first time it will leave at the diskpart command line. You can also format the drive from here or just exit and let the windows installation process format the drive during install.

Type EXIT <enter> to exit the diskpart utility and return to the command line.

Also - don't be surprised if you see more space, this wipes out the hidden factory restore and/or diagnostic partitions but from the sounds of it you already erased the data there anyways.

 

[Fruhstuck]

Success! Thank you popatim, I figured out what I was doing wrong. I was typing in format c:/fs:NTFS/P:2 and then when it asked for the volume I was trying to put the volume from partition d:/. When I should have typed format d:/fs:NTFS/P:2 to begin with and then the right volume from the d:/ partition. I knew I was missing something that I was gonna kick myself for later.

I just have two more questions for you.

In the second half of your post you mentioned the diskpart method to wipe my HDD. What's the difference between that way and the way I'm doing? Is it just a more thorough wipe?

Second, I do have concerns about if I wipe the factory installed data? Will that affect my computer in adverse ways?

Thanks again this has been nuisance for me to solve this problem.

 

[popatim]

Since Vista - A full format writes 0's to the drive as well as test each sector.
Prior to vista, a full format did a read test on each sector and created new allocation tables.
clean all wites 0's to every sector of the hard drive without testing the sectors.

because you are done already, I'm not sure you accomplished what you set out to do. How big is your HDD and how long did the process take?

 

[Fruhstuck]

Well I haven't finished just yet. I've been running the d:/fs:NTFS/P:2 way, I guess I'll call it that, for about 2 hours now on a relatively old laptop. It's an HP from around 2010 it has a 500 gb Hard drive. It's at 48% right now. So I'm assuming it'll take another two to three hours to complete.

All I'm attempting to do is just have a thorough erase of my hard drive, so that it's like when I first bought it. I have read articles and have talked to people all the time about this. Who in turn say that programs like DBan and basic windows formatting will not completely wipe the hard drive and they leave behind old data or a condensed copy of whatever you previously had on your hard drive.

I'm really just using my laptop as a guinea pig to this method before I try it out on other computers. Hopefully this does what I think it's going to be doing because now I'm doubting myself haha.

 

[gmkos]

Here you go:

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

Enjoy.

 

[Fruhstuck]

That's the program I was trying to use but it hasn't been updated since 2004. It has some error in it that if you're running more than 2 gigs of ram the program wont run.

 

[popatim]

Ok if its taking that long then yes its doing the job right.

 

[Fruhstuck]

Yeah, I figured. Well thanks for helping out with my questions, much appreciated.

 

[gmkos]

Yeah, I figured. Well thanks for helping out with my questions, much appreciated.

So ultimately, you're performing Guttman's method....same as DBAN.

 

[Fruhstuck]

I don't know what Guttman's method is previously to this forum post. However, looking it up online it appears that it is a standardized method that uses 35 patterns of 0 and 1 to rewrite on the hard drive.

I don't really know hard drives that well when it comes to getting into the actual working web of code and hardware of the device, other than write speeds, types, and general information for when I'm building computers. Again, all I've been asking for is a method to wipe my hard drive as if it was factory new. Dban didn't work on my laptop as I said before and from what I can tell it does just what the Gutmann method does. However, I only wanted to write 0's to my disk to destroy the data on it. I looked up online what I could use to do that because I heard it's more efficient and winded up with the C:/fs:NTFS/P:2 method. Whether this is true or not I do not know. This is also why I asked is there any difference between the Gutmann method and C:/fs:NTFS/P:2 method. No one answered me. Either way Through Popatim's advice I figured out how to make the C:/fs:NTFS/P:2 method run on my laptop and it erased everything on my hard drive just like I asked for.

So I settled for that as my answer. I still don't know the difference between Gutmann method and C:/fs:NTFS/P:2 method. If you would like to explain to me why I would sure appreciate it.

Thanks