Complete Clean of Hard drive

[mitchell65]

Three members of my PC club are prepared to donate their old PC's to help older people get started in Computing. They all want me to guarantee that the hard drives will be completely cleaned so that no data can be recovered. They are all savvy enough to know that formatting is not enough! I'm sure I can remember seeing a link to suitable free software that will do the job but for he life of me I can't find it now. I thought I saw it in one of Gregs tuts but can't see it there. I have found via Google this:
http://easyfileshredder.com/landing/AW/01/DeletedFiles.html

Do you think this will do the job?
Any comments appreciated!

 

[marsmimar]

I think the "Clean All" option using the Diskpart command will do what you want.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52129-disk-clean-clean-all-diskpart-command.html

Another free tool often recommended is Darik's Boot and Nuke (DBAN.)

Darik's Boot And Nuke | Hard Drive Disk Wipe and Data Clearing

 

[Golden]

Another option:

Attach these disks to your PC.

1. Delete files from HDD as normal, or format HDD, thereby creating free disk space, then
2. Run the Windows inbuilt cipher command using this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/276046-cipher-command-overwrite-deleted-data-windows.html

Very easy to do, and any previously deleted data is completely unrecoverable.

Regards,
Golden

 

[Kaktussoft]

diskpart
list disk (now select the correct disk!)
sel disk 0
clean all
exit


clean all puts zeros on all sectors. it takes a long time to complete.
Can older people that are going to use windows use a totally blank disk?? Peolpe starting to get computing can't install windows themself!

 

[mitchell65]

Thanks all for the info. I should have given more detail. I would anticipate more PC's being donated in the future. Some if not the majority will be Win XP. It will down to me to clean the HD's and I will re install whatever OS was on there in the first place. I know it would be better to start people off with the most modern setup but beggars can't be choosers and many potential users will give up after a short while. I aim to just give people an idea of what it is like to use a keyboard and a mouse. Very low key stuff. But first I must protect the integrity of the people kind enough to donate the PC's in the first place. I am trusted to see what is on their old and new machines so I need to maintain that level of trust.

 

[indianacarnie]

I can't remember the name of the last one I used...... something to do with ocean? I'll see if I can dig it up...... but other than that you could try one of these: 5 Free Programs to Completely Wipe a Hard Drive

 

[Britton30]

diskpart
list disk (now select the correct disk!)
sel disk 0
clean all
exit


clean all puts zeros on all sectors. it takes a long time to complete.
Can older people that are going to use windows use a totally blank disk?? Peolpe starting to get computing can't install windows themself!

this had been suggested already.

Also CCleaner has a disk wipe utility too. Lotsa ways to do it.

 

[mitchell65]

Well I have studied all the replies for which Thank You all. I really want a program that will clean the HD completely. That will allow me to swap HD's among the PC's if I need to. I am anticipating that if I get 4 PC's donated I might make 3 decent ones. So far Darik's Boot and Nuke looks the best bet and I am trying this on an old XP machine at the moment. It looks like it will take about 4 hours to do all three passes so I will leave it going while I doze in front of the fire and report back tomorrow. Thanks to all again!

 

[marsmimar]

Look forward to your report, John.

 

[mitchell65]

Well Darik's Boot and Nuke has just finished and as far as i can tell all looks OK. Tomorrow I will try to retrieve some data from the HD and see what happens. Just as an exercise

 

[Golden]

 

[Dallas 7]

Also CCleaner has a disk wipe utility too. Lotsa ways to do it.

That's what I use. I think CCleaner is as good as any.

http://www.piriform.com/docs/ccleaner/using-ccleaner/wiping-free-disk-space

I just delete all data then let CCleaner bury it permanently.
It'll overwrite with 1, 3, 7, or up to 35 passes.

 

[Britton30]

As an added bit of assurance read Section 2.2 in this lengthy, technical article.

http://www.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu/docs/secdel/secdel.pdf

 

[mitchell65]

Thanks for that Gary, interesting (on the third read, though).
To go back I neede software that would wipe the entire C drive. OS as well as data so the Darik's Nuke was my choice. Have to say it worked very well. I went through the process and then hitched the HD to another computer a tried a Recuver on it. Nothing found!! Very impressive. So this for now will be my preferred software. I feel quite happy about re assuring the donors of the used PC's that their security will not be compromised. I tested this on an old XP machine that was full of rubbish anyway. As an exercise I first ran Macrium Reflect to make a backup of the whole C drive. After the successful clean with Nuke I restored via the Macrium backup. All went well! I then cleaned the drive again and downloaded the ISO for XP so that I could do a clean install. All completed successfully apart from the fact that I thought part of the HD had been lost as it was only showing 39GB of space. Then I realised it was only a 40GB HD anyway, that's how old it is but it is working fine and will help someone get strted I'm sure. So all in all a successful venture so far.
Many thanks for all the help and suggestions!

 

[Britton30]

John, only 3 reads?

The article is a big stinkerthinker, that's for sure.

 

[Golden]

 

[mjf]

Aside from Government agencies I bet you have "nuked" the HDDs beyond recovery. But if you wanted a final check I wouldn't just check with Recuva but also a RAW file recovery program. PhotoRec is the only free one I have (does more than photo files).

 

[mitchell65]

Aside from Government agencies I bet you have "nuked" the HDDs beyond recovery. But if you wanted a final check I wouldn't just check with Recuva but also a RAW file recovery program. PhotoRec is the only free one I have (does more than photo files).

Thanks I will give the Photo Rec a go on the next Nuking job, likely to be later this week!