how permanent is Fdisk?

[krusty the klown]

Just a quickie!

I have an old HDD that has some confidential patient data on it. Can I be 100% sure that the information is unrecoverably destroyed by using Fdisk to remove the existing partition, then creating and formatting a new partition? There is only one partition on the drive and I will be replacing it with a partition of the same size.

TIA,

Krusty.

[alpha]

No, it could still be possible to get your data back. You need Norton disk edit *evil grin, followed by evil cackle*

Norton diskedit should allow you to fully hack it out http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[x35Agent]

What about ZeroFill would that not work?

[krusty the klown]

I don't have the Norton stuff.... Hmmmmm... the HDD is an old Seag8 545MB... If I did the Fdisk and re-format trick, then, say copied 500MB of new harmless data on (like a CD ROM image file), then deleted that file.... would that do the trick??

Alternatively, I could stuff an axe through the back of the disk. I do not want the disk and was going to give it away, but wanted to make sure that the original data was completely erased before doing so.

BTW: I look after a few PC in a private medical consultancy in my own time. One of the PC's was kn@ckered beyond economic repair and the guy that runs the show let me do with it what I wanted..... just before some 'do gooder' reckons I'm lifting stuff http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif

EDIT: never heard of ZeroFill - what does that do?

[This message has been edited by krusty the klown (edited 06-07-2000).]

[neo_otyugh]

a zerofill writes 0's to the entire hard drive...i found that diagnostic software from hard drive manufacturers tends to have it...

[Rmcky]

Do a search at the normal download sites for a program called BCWipe. It's freeware and is a DOD disk wiping program that you can set to run 6 or 7 passes and it will leave the data unrecoverable. I think it write Xs and 0s to the disk and will do what you want it to unattended. Just set it to run before you turn in and it will be finished when you rise. Hope this helps.
Rick

[krusty the klown]

Cheers, Rick!

I'll do a search for that proggie later - it sounds as though it does a similar thing to ZeroFill http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[Dave_H]

BCWipe for Windows 95/98/NT (http://www.jetico.com/)
Dave

[fvay]

if you want to zero out the clusters. western digital has a utility in their website. it's supposed to fix WD hard drives only, but you can go as far as zeroing out with all drives. its the same program available in gateway technical support site
regards
Fren

[Faramir]

I thought if you format with the /U that destroys everything so it's not retrievable?

[Szech]

I believe /U will merely format the drive regardless of any errors or messages that would otherwise pop up.

[Banti]

c:\format /u erases without the possiblilty of using the unformat command later
http://www.easydos.com/format.html

[ctaylor]

neo_otyugh

I think you have that wrong "writing zeros to the drive" actually means writing patterns of ones and zeros to the drive.

Each "one" and "zero" is actually a polarity shift of the oxide covering the HDD platter. Writing all zeros would align all the polarities in the same direction, which would prevent the "write zeros to the drive" process from actually testing the drive. Writting zeros to the drive is actually writting several patterns to the drive (over the top of the previous pattern) and checking to make sure that the patterns actually "take."

[bdunn]

At another job I had a hospital as a customer theyd wipe a drive by putting it in a box adjacent to an MRI machine. That'll kill jsuat about anything

[x35Agent]

That is the best one I have heard yet!!!!!!!

ROTFLMAO

[krusty the klown]

Yeah, that 1 Tesla superconducting magnet would be a bit permanent! That's exactly what they do where I worked - if they wanted to erase a video tape with patient scan data, or something!

Cheers for the advice! I've downloaded the BC wipe.... so short of taking it in to the hospital http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif I'll newk it with that, Fdisk, then format /U.

Should do the trick!!!

[Andy_L]

through recent expirience, disk wipe programs can make the drive not bootable, so be forewarned!!

[Axel]

The MRI trick is great for video tapes, but on hard drives, you risk wrecking the chips and any e-proms or BIOS on the drive if it uses one - Plus - most MRI facilities ban any metal objects from the room, so they wouldn't let you take it in to the source....

One way I've seen disks rebuilt so as to remove any data off them is to change the drive to LBA mode in the CMOS settings and then run a format - by altering the mode the drive was in, it pretty much totally wrecks anything that was there before after you format in the new mode.