Wiping hard drive TOTALLY

londonpi

I guess if you are looking to not give it to him and didn't want to mention your privacy concerns then you could just tell him you dropped something on it/accidentally damadged it so you threw it away.

bundly

puk999 wrote: »

After a reformat, could you fill up the drive with new files? I would've thought this would mean any space previously flagged as deleted (but not actually deleted) would be rewritten with the new files.
.

I never thought of that! I could easily fill the entire drive with harmless stuff then delete it.

Oh Puk you are a genius!

bundly

londonpi wrote: »

tell him you dropped something on it/accidentally damadged it so you threw it away.

Ahhh the old "the cat was sick on it" excuse!

pogofish

Whenever I've junked a PC, I've always kept the HDDs to myself - either reused them or in case I ever want to recover anything from it.

Got a little box of old discs stashed.

rmg1

Why is it people want to trash perfectly good drives?
Format the drive (full format not quick) and a wipe with Ccleaner (see the "wipe unused space" option) using the 5 or 7 overwrites is plenty and the drive can then be re-used.

Sooler

bundly wrote: »

He will ask why

Some discussion here on recovery after dban
http://www.reddit.com/r/computerforensics/comments/1qeywr/dban_recovery/

Also if he's an 'engineer' who knows anything he would know why it could possibly be inappropiate to ask for the disk, least alone understand and accept why anyone would not want to let him have it.

techno12

Just Truecrypt the drive. He'll never be able to crack that, unless he guesses the password.

Casey_Ryback

Hi,

I just would like to share with you what I am permitted to share
Rest assured that 4-5 times overwritten data can still be recovered with ease. Water/fire moisture=heat damaged HDD can be disassembled and those surfaces cleaned inside disc's mounted into "master" HDD platform than re-read! So let's say your friend is an "expert" in that I would not trust him with a pint of milk...
Sensitive data on it? DESTROY!!
Either wrap it into towel and microwave it for 15 sec low strength or take HDD apart, remove inside disk's and brake them apart!
No chisel or scratching... physically brake them!
If you got welding equipment you use your interior design skills

Jivesinger

techno12 wrote: »

Just Truecrypt the drive. He'll never be able to crack that, unless he guesses the password.

Even the Truecrypt folks say that Truecrypt is not secure and you shouldn't use it.

googler

Casey_Ryback wrote: »

Hi,

I just would like to share with you what I am permitted to share
Rest assured that 4-5 times overwritten data can still be recovered with ease. Water/fire moisture=heat damaged HDD can be disassembled and those surfaces cleaned inside disc's mounted into "master" HDD platform than re-read! So let's say your friend is an "expert" in that I would not trust him with a pint of milk...
Sensitive data on it? DESTROY!!
Either wrap it into towel and microwave it for 15 sec low strength or take HDD apart, remove inside disk's and brake them apart!
No chisel or scratching... physically brake them!
If you got welding equipment you use your interior design skills

There's no need for the OP to do this, if he KEEPS THE DRIVE.

There's no need to protect the data if he doesn't give it to the friend....