Need HDDErase That will work with SATA ...

as it turned out I did not need to. moving it to a smarter system and running secure erase enhanced did it.

Hi there
You need some utility that does a PHYSICAL WRITE of x'00' (Binary zero's) on EVERY SECTOR.
Formatting or even wiping a partition won't do as this simply alters the directory contents but doesn't destroy the data. (If you don't like X'00' just write random Hex data but it must be on every sector).

Think of typical OS formatting and erase commands as simply tearing the Index and Table of Contents from a Book -- you can still READ the entire book as the actual DATA hasn't been destroyed.


This utility (has Military Strength erase) is quite good and FREE.

Disk Wipe - Free software

Cheers
jimbo

Try using something like this.

I've been reading about this topic and I learned about 2 areas of a SATA HDD that some disk-wipe tools won't access:

- Host Protected Area

- Drive Configuration Overlay

DBAN won't access those areas on a HDD according to their FAQ page.

I was reading about "HDDEerase" and according to their "readme" file, it will remove the HPA & DCO areas on a HDD.

I got interested in this subject after reading some online posts about malicious objects still being present on HDD's after running DBAN and some of the other well-known diskwipe tools.

Will the Diskpart / clean all command access / overwrite these areas?

Britton30 said:

As I understand it, clean all writes zeroes to all disk sectors so it should do it.
The two areas you mention wouldn't have any personal data, would they?

Thanks for the reply :)

I don't have personal data in those areas of the HDD. I've been curious about the best wipe tool to use if I needed to clean an infected HDD in the future.

Britton30 said:

You're welcome. I ran clean all on a, I think, a 320GB HDD once and it took about 3 hours.

Thanks again :)

My HDD's are all Seagate "Barracuda" SATA HDD's with Win 7 default installs (2 partitions, the "Sys Reserved" and the main partition). I have 2 spare HDD's with one that I periodically clone as a tested working shelf spare HDD and the other one as a testing tool for full-disk backup/restore imaging.

If a complete HDD wipe was necessary, including the HPA and DCO, would a clone process copy the HPA and DCO back to the wiped HDD?

For example,

HDD #1 = the wiped HDD, using HDDErase, previously infected

HDD #2 = a verified working spare

if I cloned HDD #2 (Source HDD) to HDD #1 (Target HDD) with one of the various cloning tools (Clonezilla, etc), would HDD #2 then be restored, including the HPA and DCO, restoring it to a complete bootable HDD?

I'm assuming that this would work since the cloning process copies one HDD to another HDD as an exact bit-by-bit copy. That's my understanding of it. I'm not sure if cloning processes all work in the same way, regardless of the cloning tool. I use Acronis and Macrium Reflect to clone and have used Clonezilla a couple of times, all with good results with the Target HDD's booting up into Win 7 ok.

Britton30 said:

Cloning HDD 2 to HDD 1 should work fine if HDD 2 has a working booting system already installed. A clone is an exact "twin" of the source drive and recreates it including all partitions.

Thanks again for the reply :)

BTW, your avi and sig are