Need help destroying hard drive!

[lbeachmike]

Hey guys -

I have an external 160gig USB drive (Buffalo Tech) - beautifully quiet, but slow as a paralyzed snail.

Before I return it, I want to wipe clean the sensitive data I have on it.

I tried using Active Kill-Disk, that was to do a low-level format, but it seemed not to progress at all for a super-long time.

This manufacturer offers no tools for this purpose. My Seagate tools appear to only be interested in dealing with Seagate drives.

1. Which tool is recommended to do a zero-fill or anything else that will vaporize all of the data?

2. How long should I expect it to take for a LLF or zero-fill of a 160 gig external USB drive?

Thanks.

Mike

[BipolarBill]

It would take 12-24 hours to zero-fill a 160GB drive.

Since Buffalo Tech doesn't actually make hard drives, there has to be a WD, Maxtor, Samsung or Hitachi inside. Try the Windows tools from each of those makers. Do not use the DOS tools because the drive will not be seen in DOS.

[Sterling_Aug]

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Free, but I am not sure that it works on a USB drive.

Take the drive out of the enclosure and use the IDE connection and it will work.

[lbeachmike]

Well, it's a Western Digital drive, but I found no useful utility on Western Digital's site.

Re: DOS-based tools - the one I tried actually did recognize the drive; it seemed to access it - it just stayed stuck at 0% for such a long time that I concluded it wasn't doing anything. I think even if it's a 12-24 hour operation, it should have at least indicated progress.

Since I'm about to return it, I'm not sure if I want to take it apart and perform surgery, though that would be somewhat of a sure thing.

I'll check out the open-source tool referenced above.

Thanks.

mrk

[Midknyte]

you can still recover data even after doing a zero fill, if you have the right software.

I use dban. it ain't the fastest thing, but it does a good job of erasing your data.

Download the UBCD from Tech tools. It has DBAN, plus a bunch of other useful utilities:
Tech Tools (http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=173743)

[Steve R Jones]

Format it - zero fill it - format it again.

[lbeachmike]

None of these options are any fun - I'm thinking of removing the platter and taking a hammer to it .....

Less violent, I've also heard these things really like to be around strong electromagnetic fields :)

mrk

[lbeachmike]

The irony here is how tricky a time I'm having just destroying some data, whereas Microsoft does such a good job of this on a daily basis! :D

[crusious31]

Well, it's a Western Digital drive, but I found no useful utility on Western Digital's site.

Data Lifeguard Diagnostics - DLGDIAG for Windows

Go back to WD site and download above.

[lbeachmike]

Well, I was pretty excited about this DLGDIAG utility for Windows that Western Digital does provide on their website.

It's actually a pretty awesome tool. Reads the info off of all my drives.

HOWEVER - No breaks for me here because it does not recognize external USB drives - and in fact I just got off the phone with their support who told me very confidently that it will not work with external USB drives.

It's almost seeming as if the easiest thing to do here is to simply fill the disk with non-sensitive junk files to overwrite everything that was on there, and then reformat. That would do the trick.

These utilities are turning out to be futilities :(

mrk

[lbeachmike]

Thanks for all the guidance everyone - DriveEraser is doing the job quite nicely with my drive currently 8% vaporized.

I appreciate all the help you guys offer here.

This is one of my very favorite sites on the web :)

Mike