Erasing Business Hard Drives

[jedinegotiator]

I work for the City of Roanoke and we are looking for a secure and efficient way to erase hard drives. He are in the process of recycling close to 1000 computers and we need to take the hard drive out of each one and make sure the data is destroyed. As you can imagine these hard drives have sensitive data on them.

I know that formatting a disk does not actually delete the data. What are some good programs that will securely erase the data(preferably free)?

We have also considered using a drill press to simply drill a hole through all the drives which renders the drive unusable. Do you think this is a good idea? It is much faster than formatting the drive.

Any ideas are appreciated. Just remember the faster the better as long as it is secure!

Thanks!

 

[Todd Kleinert]

This is untrue. If you use an NIAP EAL 4+ certified destruction utility, you are within the DoD guidelines.

If you truly work for whitecanyon then you know this is only true for drives that do not contain classified data or controlled unclasified data.

Heres the Navy and Marines official policy unless things have changed since 2009, which I doubt. (DON = Dept of the Navy)

5. ACTION. ALL DON-OWNED MAGNETIC HARD DRIVE STORAGE MEDIA WHICH ARE CLASSIFIED OR NOT DATA AT REST COMPLIANT WILL REMAIN IN DON CUSTODY AND CONTROL UNTIL DEGAUSSED (CLASSIFIED ONLY), PHYSICALLY DESTROYED, UNLESS SHIPPED TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY (NSA). THERE ARE THREE APPROVED DISPOSAL METHODS FOR MAGNETIC HARD DRIVES. COMMANDS MAY USE A DESTRUCTION SERVICE OR PURCHASE THEIR OWN DEGAUSSING AND DESTRUCTION EQUIPMENT BUT WILL BEAR WHATEVER COST IS ASSOCIATED WITH THAT EQUIPMENT. A GSA APPROVED LIST OF RESOURCES CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.DONCIO.NAVY.MIL/PRIVACY. ALL METHODS MUST RESULT IN PHYSICAL DESTRUCTION, UNLESS A WAIVER FROM THE RESPECTIVE DON DEPUTY CIO IS APPROVED (PER PARA. 6)

These are SOME of the certifications WipeDrive has earned:
US DoD 5220.22-M
US Army AR380-19
US Air Force System Security Instruction 5020
US Navy Staff Office Publication P-5329-26
US National Computer Security Center TG-025
- See more at: http://www.whitecanyon.com/wipedrive-niap-certification#sthash.wXiRqGM0.dpuf

 

[USAFRet]

Honestly, the original poster seems interested in doing this right. I think that the citizens of Roanoke are in good hands, as long as he sticks to the attitude that securely erasing the information is the main concern.

Yes, he does seem to be very interested in doing this right.
Let's hope they can.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Most newer hard drives should have a secure erase feature built into them. You can use parted magic to call the drive's secure erase function.

To securely erase all the data on an SSD, you use a command—called Secure Erase, appropriately enough—that's built into the firmware of all modern SATA drives and older PATA/IDE drives. Some SSDs ship with the ability to initiate secure erase, but if your drive doesn't, two top third-party programs that can activate the command and wipe SSDs are the Center for Magnetic Recording Research's Secure Erase tool and Parted Magic.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/261702/how_to_securely_erase_your_hard_drive.html

Many (most?) mfg's of SSD's have NOT implemented Secure Erase properly within their firmware. Be very very careful trying to delete information from these devices, because they contain an extra un-accessible area which data is swapped into and out of. Because it is not accessible through normal means, it is also not erasable by normal means. Advanced testing has shown that these devices are not able to be deleted reliably, even using Secure Erase. More info here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/21/flash_drive_erasing_peril/

Most newer hard drives should have a secure erase feature built into them. You can use parted magic to call the drive's secure erase function.

To securely erase all the data on an SSD, you use a command—called Secure Erase, appropriately enough—that's built into the firmware of all modern SATA drives and older PATA/IDE drives. Some SSDs ship with the ability to initiate secure erase, but if your drive doesn't, two top third-party programs that can activate the command and wipe SSDs are the Center for Magnetic Recording Research's Secure Erase tool and Parted Magic.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/261702/how_to_securely_erase_your_hard_drive.html

I don't know who wrote that, but it is not correct. The problem with SSD is that because of the nature of the devices themselves, they cannot and do not adhere to all the standards. In the case of rotational media, yes they will adhere completely. Not so with SSD's. VERY FEW SSD manufacturers implement a firmware which effectively can erase the whole device, including the slush area used for bad-sector management. You really should read this, and re-read it until it sinks in, the information is HIGHLY technical: http://static.usenix.org/events/fast11/tech/full_papers/Wei.pdf

The OP is using hard drives as he speaks of drilling through the platters. I errouneously omitted the fact that this does not work well with SSD's.

I have used DBAN with great success, but I wouldn't recommend it on a large quntity of drives as that may take a while.

 

[Todd Kleinert]

Most newer hard drives should have a secure erase feature built into them. You can use parted magic to call the drive's secure erase function.

To securely erase all the data on an SSD, you use a command—called Secure Erase, appropriately enough—that's built into the firmware of all modern SATA drives and older PATA/IDE drives. Some SSDs ship with the ability to initiate secure erase, but if your drive doesn't, two top third-party programs that can activate the command and wipe SSDs are the Center for Magnetic Recording Research's Secure Erase tool and Parted Magic.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/261702/how_to_securely_erase_your_hard_drive.html

Many (most?) mfg's of SSD's have NOT implemented Secure Erase properly within their firmware. Be very very careful trying to delete information from these devices, because they contain an extra un-accessible area which data is swapped into and out of. Because it is not accessible through normal means, it is also not erasable by normal means. Advanced testing has shown that these devices are not able to be deleted reliably, even using Secure Erase. More info here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/21/flash_drive_erasing_peril/

Most newer hard drives should have a secure erase feature built into them. You can use parted magic to call the drive's secure erase function.

To securely erase all the data on an SSD, you use a command—called Secure Erase, appropriately enough—that's built into the firmware of all modern SATA drives and older PATA/IDE drives. Some SSDs ship with the ability to initiate secure erase, but if your drive doesn't, two top third-party programs that can activate the command and wipe SSDs are the Center for Magnetic Recording Research's Secure Erase tool and Parted Magic.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/261702/how_to_securely_erase_your_hard_drive.html

I don't know who wrote that, but it is not correct. The problem with SSD is that because of the nature of the devices themselves, they cannot and do not adhere to all the standards. In the case of rotational media, yes they will adhere completely. Not so with SSD's. VERY FEW SSD manufacturers implement a firmware which effectively can erase the whole device, including the slush area used for bad-sector management. You really should read this, and re-read it until it sinks in, the information is HIGHLY technical: http://static.usenix.org/events/fast11/tech/full_papers/Wei.pdf

The OP is using hard drives as he speaks of drilling through the platters. I errouneously omitted the fact that this does not work well with SSD's.

I have used DBAN with great success, but I wouldn't recommend it on a large quntity of drives as that may take a while.

DBAN does not erase Device Configuration Overlays (DCO) & Host Protected Area(s) (HPA) partitions. DBAN entirely skips bad sectors. DBAN does not produce any logs or reports. DBAN is not certified by anyone. I would not use something which hasn't been scrutinized by an independent third-party certification company, in a government scenario.
Logs and reports are necessary to maintain chain-of-custody. Bad Sectors exist on all drives, and need to be wiped, otherwise you are leaving a percentage of the data in place (defeating the whole point of the excercise). Certifications ensure that the application really does what it says, and does it 100%, leaving no data un-wiped.

Yes, all software solutions rely on the speed of the drive being wiped. If you're in a hurry, this is not the task to try to accomplish. Wiping drives is a relatively slow process, because it encompasses the whole of the storage space on the given drive. WD Raptor hard drives erase really fast, because they're high performance drives. Likewise, older desktop drives can take considerable time to properly and securely erase. All this comes down to the drive itself, and it's speed (or lack of).

 

[popatim]

You can rent a decent degausser for about 500 a week but i would check with nearby cities/towns to see if maybe someone already has one.

 

[mcnumpty23]

the length of time this thread has been going they could have dismantled the drives by hand and used a hammer on the

drive platters

how about a few offenders with sledge hammers?

like a electronics chain gang

though seriously i agree with everyone who said physical destruction is the way to go

shouldnt the city council or whatever the USA equivalent of it is be able to have the personnel and equipment to

destroy them in house?

and once they are destroyed is there any scrap value in them?

 

[Guest]

If you work for a city im sure the brush department has a tree branch grinder upper. ie mulcher, chipper, somehing like that. you could try that. or like others have said wipe them one at a time. save 10 of the computers and install a drive wiping program. i use EASEUS partition manager that has a built in drive wiper. i take the hard drive out of computer B, plug it into computer A with the side panel off, directly to the mother board and run program. you will need 15 passes. after they are wiped you can re-use them. There is probably an actual machine made specifically for grinding up hard drives in flakes.
Geez, the times we live in.

 

[popatim]

Yes there are actually machines that chew up hard drives and spit out the pieces. LoL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd_O7-rqcHc

 

[USAFRet]

Yes there are actually machines that chew up hard drives and spit out the pieces. LoL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd_O7-rqcHc

Scale up to do engine blocks or refrigerators

 

[jani77]

ErAce will over write hard drive 1-100 time up to 6 drives simultaneously. It can be downloaded from erace.it