Solved Securely wipping a hard drive

[sygnus21]

Not sure where to put this but I need to send a hard drive back to Western Digital and was wondering if programs like Paragon's Wipe disk which uses DoD 5220-2M algorithm to wipe info renders the dive inactive?

In short will using a software secure wipe program render the HD inoperative, which is something I'm not tying to do.

Thanks.

BTW I don't really need anything elaborate as the info on the drive isn't that secret, but just enough that someone has to work to recover the info if they were nosey enough to do so.

Thanks.

 

[Golden]

No. It wont render it inoperable, but DoD is perhaps overkill. Is the drive attached a a secondary drive in the computer? If so you could run this...far simpler and just as secure:

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

 

[sygnus21]

Thanks a lot Golden,

To answer, I just pulled the drive from the system but can always plug it in a hot swap bay. However I did delete all the partitions on it. Does that matter using the Cipher Command? I'll go ahead and read through it but...

BTW do you have your PM off? I can't reply.

 

[Golden]

Deleting the partition was just another secure step. You could plug it back in, create a new empty partition, then run cipher......job done.

A partition must exist to be able to use cipher.

 

[sygnus21]

Why would I do that as opposed to just using Paragon which requires no partitions? Especially since you say it doesn't render the drive inop.

Just trying to see if there's an advantage to going your route.

At any rate I really appreciate the info, it's helped a lot +1

Thanks.

 

[Golden]

No advantage at all....just another option to consider. If the Paragon utility is familiar to you, then go ahead with that. They achieve the same result but the DoD algorithm runs several passes (depending on the settings chosen) so it will take a bit longer

 

[sygnus21]

but the DoD algorithm runs several passes (depending on the settings chosen) so it will take a bit longer

Ahh... There's the key right there.

Thank you