Deleting Hard Drive on Laptop for Sale

DoaM

Would that be the Download DBAN link at the top-right of the page linked above? (I'm not going to paste the actual link as it goes to an automatic download of a 15.9MB ISO file).

poppellerant

As this is a money saving forum, it seems absolutely crazy to suggest that somebody spends money on a replacement drive.  So I agree with the more recent posts, just use free software to erase the drive.  If you have the time and want to be confident that the erasure is effective, wipe the drive at least a couple of times.  On my own old hard drives, I run at least three passes before physically destroying the drives.

[Deleted User]

poppellerant said:

As this is a money saving forum, it seems absolutely crazy to suggest that somebody spends money on a replacement drive.  So I agree with the more recent posts, just use free software to erase the drive.  If you have the time and want to be confident that the erasure is effective, wipe the drive at least a couple of times.  On my own old hard drives, I run at least three passes before physically destroying the drives.

I suppose it depends on how much value the OP places on peace of mind about their finances.
£20-25 on a new SSD could potentially save them thousands if their data falls into the hands of someone unscrupulous.


OP I'll give you a tenner for the laptop if you promise not to wipe the hard drive 

TheRightOne

MinuteNoodles said:

Ignore all the above. if it is a convential mechanical drive use the free version of the following software from Blancco . It will overwrite the entire drive with ones and zeros and random and patterns making multiple passes and destroying the data on it. Blancco is used by governments to clean hard drives, it'll be more than sufficient.

https://dban.org/

Why should they choose to ignore all the above just because you have written it. Totally ridiculous.
They can choose their path.
Darik's Boot and Nuke was purchased by Blancco in 2010.
Keep in mind that while DBAN is a great data wiping tool for individuals, it does not achieve data sanitisation...comes from the Blannco website itself.

http://techlogon.com/2012/07/07/securely-erase-a-hard-drive-dban-may-not-be-sufficient/

Either way, erasing the disk will still involve a clean install of the OS to a slow disk. Swapping the drive to an SSD might lead them to not attempt to sell it at all, but to continue using it with a much improved performance.

TheRightOne

dogmaryxx said:

MinuteNoodles said:

Ignore all the above. if it is a convential mechanical drive use the free version of the following software from Blancco .

          Please show link to the free version for personal use.

It's actually hosted on Sourceforge, not on the Blancco website: https://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/files/dban/dban-2.3.0/dban-2.3.0_i586.iso/download

Blancco products are for Enterprise use.

prowla

JJ_Egan said:

Yes and no .

Videos etc will overwrite , but recovery tools may well get back some of the previous data .

Far easier to use a wipe tool like Dban or CCleaner advanced wipe .

Do you have any evidence that can be done?

prowla

I would boot it with a Linux DVD "live" distribution and fill it with random data or copy video files onto it to fill it.

The Linux command "dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sda bs=1024k" (I think that's right) would fill the disk with random data

J_B

The 'man in the pub' works in some high up security service IT department.

When the scrap a hard drive it goes through an industrial 'coffee grinder' (turning it to powder) to ensure all data in unrecoverable.

They obviously think a quick wipe with a load of zeroes to be insufficient!

tronator

prowla said:

I would boot it with a Linux DVD "live" distribution and fill it with random data or copy video files onto it to fill it.

The Linux command "dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sda bs=1024k" (I think that's right) would fill the disk with random data

/dev/zero is as good as /dev/random, but it is much quicker. Secondly, if dd encounters an error, it exits. If you don't notice, the remainder of the hard disk stays untouched. You're better off using badblocks or gddrescue which can handle read/write errors better and can even write a log.

MinuteNoodles

dogmaryxx said:

MinuteNoodles said:

Ignore all the above. if it is a convential mechanical drive use the free version of the following software from Blancco .

          Please show link to the free version for personal use.

It's on the front page at the top of the one I linked to, top right of the big red bit at the top where it says "Download DBAN".

Click on that and it takes you to the Sourceforge project page

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/files/dban/dban-2.3.0/dban-2.3.0_i586.iso/download

Upon where it'll automatically download after a 5 second countdown timer.

Take that ISO, burn it to a disc, boot the computer from that disc.