Deleting Sensitive Information for Good!!

Essexdelboy

I am going to be sellinin my PC and getting a newer model soon (maybe a Dell from the 'Grabbit while you can' board), but I will be shortly be formatting my machine and wanted to pick some techies brains.

I downloaded a program called 'Eraser', on the recommendation from 'Computer Active' magazine, as I have some financial and work related sensitive information on my hard drive and I don’t want it to fall in to the wrong hands. Call me paranoid but you cant be too careful in today’s day and age.

I have installed and run the program, and have selected which drives to 'overwrite' etc, but how can I be sure that the information has been overwritten?

Now the program has completed I assume I can just go ahead and format my machine and then reinstall my OS and programs etc etc.

But I am just after some advice really as to the effectiveness of such a program and I am wondering whether anybody else uses or has used such a program?

criminal_smile

TBH, you do seem to be a tad paranoid, but anyway....... I'm assuming Eraser gives you the option to specify how many times to overwrite the chosen files/folders etc. Rumour has it that law enforcement agencies have the ability to recreate files overwritten 11 times (last time I checked anyway). If Eraser is at least meeting that, then I would imagine it would be near impossible to recover anything form the hard drive after formatting.

DVB_3

The only way to be sure is to trust the program in question. There are plenty of such progs around, so if you have any doubts just install and apply another one. As an additional security measure you could write some garbage on top of your erased data, erase it again and have your hdd repartitioned, because it will make a potential recovery much harder to perform.

LongDongDave

You need to "overwrite" the HD, try BCWipe http://www.jetico.com

DVB_3

criminal_smile - apologies, crossposted :doh:

As far as I heard, the information has to be overwritten 8 times with interleaving bit patterns, which is 16 writes effectively. Still, a recent research involving STM suggested that even that is not sufficient.

criminal_smile

np DVB..... always better to have a number of opinions / ideas anyway.
Must say....I haven't had to get rid of any 'sensitive' material for a long,long time, so I'm not totally up on current tactics.

LongDongDave

DVB wrote:

criminal_smile - apologies, crossposted :doh:

As far as I heard, the information has to be overwritten 8 times with interleaving bit patterns, which is 16 writes effectively. Still, a recent research involving STM suggested that even that is not sufficient.

If the data is that sensitive...only one way to make sure...buy a big hammer from B&Q, job done!

DVB_3

LongDongDave wrote:

If the data is that sensitive...only one way to make sure...buy a big hammer from B&Q, job done!

Believe it or not - that's correct! The conclusion to the research I referred to stated that the information cannot be considered securely erased until the media itself was burned or shredded (or otherwise destroyed using something equivalent).

Essexdelboy

thanks guys, i know it seems paranoid but i could lose my job if the data falls in to the wrong hands.

Eraser uses the Gutman Technique and data is overwritten 35 times.

I will download BCWipe (thanks LONGDONGDAVE) and hopefully i should be covered.

asot

To answer your question as to how to check you could try the tool Disk Investigator @ http://www.theabsolute.net/sware/dskinv.html

Of course the only way to be 100% sure is to destroy the disk physically.

LongDongDave

Essexdelboy wrote:

thanks guys, i know it seems paranoid but i could lose my job if the data falls in to the wrong hands.

Eraser uses the Gutman Technique and data is overwritten 35 times.

I will download BCWipe (thanks LONGDONGDAVE) and hopefully i should be covered.

With going rate for HDs today, it's not worth the risk to sell (or buy) your PC with your info, even if you have used all the progs...