Is wiping a partition enough to get rid of sensitive data VS wiping the whole disk?

[tommycale]

Hello,
I've been working on my laptop which I use for work for a couple of years now and was planning to sell it. Over the years I've been managing sensitive data such as client details, which made me wonder before I actually wiped my HDD:

If my HDD had 2 partitions for storage such as partition (A) and partition (B) for example...

Say I managed sensitive data on (A) and now I wanted to wipe (A). Would wiping the partition (A) be enough to securely erase all remnants of data? Or will I have to rather wipe the whole disk, containing both (A) and (B)?

Thank you.

PS: I use Easeus to wipe, it usually does DOD standard wipe (3 runs).

 

[USAFRet]

"and was planning to sell it"

Wipe the entire drive, and reinstall the OS.
Give the OS install media, and the license key to the new owner.
Recommend that he also do a full wipe and reinstall when he gets it.


Just wiping the data partition does not erase any info that may be stuck inside the OS partition. In the Registry, /Users/, /AppData, tempfiles, etc.

Full wipe and reinstall.

 

[tommycale]

"and was planning to sell it"

Wipe the entire drive, and reinstall the OS.
Give the OS install media, and the license key to the new owner.
Recommend that he also do a full wipe and reinstall when he gets it.


Just wiping the data partition does not erase any info that may be stuck inside the OS partition. In the Registry, /Users/, /AppData, tempfiles, etc.

Full wipe and reinstall.

"and was planning to sell it"

Wipe the entire drive, and reinstall the OS.
Give the OS install media, and the license key to the new owner.
Recommend that he also do a full wipe and reinstall when he gets it.


Just wiping the data partition does not erase any info that may be stuck inside the OS partition. In the Registry, /Users/, /AppData, tempfiles, etc.

Full wipe and reinstall.

Thanks for the response!

I wanted to clarify a bit - I will definitely wipe everything if selling, but this question sort of had a double scenario to which I was looking for answers to. Firstly, I do have a PC which I want to sell so as you suggested, wiping it will be mandatory.

I also have another PC which I would like to continue using, but may upgrade disk drives later on. In the situation that I want to keep using the computer; I currently have a 500gb SSD which ONLY stores the OS files and applications installed. I manually changed the location of user files so that they all appear on my 2TB HDD inc downloads and such.

If I save ALL my work files e.g. docs, images, will I still need to wipe the SSD because it has temp/appdata files? Or will wiping the HDD be enough?

And to the original question, if I simply had 2 partitions in my HDD but only used 1 of them to store user files, would wiping this partition be enough to securely erase all data? Or will I have to wipe the whole disk?

Thank you, I really appreciate your support with this topic.

 

[USAFRet]

Consider a system with one drive, and two partitions.
Partition #1 = OS and applications
Partition #2 = All your data

Just wiping Partition #2 leaves behind a whole lot of personal info in Partition #1. In the Registry, AppData, /Users/tommycake, etc, etc.

The only real way to get rid of everything is to wipe the entire drive.

For a system that you wish to keep and repurpose, just wiping that one partition is fine. All that data is gone.

But, an entry in the Registry under "Recent Files" will still show something that used to live in the second partition.
It will only be the filename, and when you try to access it it would obviously fail.
But...a pointer to a filename that used to exist named "dont_let_the_wife_see_this.txt" may reveal more than you wish.

 

[tommycale]

Consider a system with one drive, and two partitions.
Partition #1 = OS and applications
Partition #2 = All your data

Just wiping Partition #2 leaves behind a whole lot of personal info in Partition #1. In the Registry, AppData, /Users/tommycake, etc, etc.

The only real way to get rid of everything is to wipe the entire drive.

For a system that you wish to keep and repurpose, just wiping that one partition is fine. All that data is gone.

But, an entry in the Registry under "Recent Files" will still show something that used to live in the second partition.
It will only be the filename, and when you try to access it it would obviously fail.
But...a pointer to a filename that used to exist named "dont_let_the_wife_see_this.txt" may reveal more than you wish.

This is perfect! Thanks for being extremely clear!

Thankfully the name or reference data as mentioned won't have any real impact since the content is mostly sensitive e.g. client name/emails etc. And it is just the content that's a concern, nothing else, which means I would probably in this scenario go with your second suggested scenario.