Secure Erase / Wipe : Definition and Methods

F22 Simpilot said:

If you have a platter drive you want to use DBAN.

Out of curiousity - why do you favour DBAN instead of Windows's native 'clean all' command for HDDs?

F22 Simpilot said:

If you have a SSD you want to use secure erase in Parted Magic.

Never heard of 'Parted Magic'. Must be one out of many 3rd party tools. So again - how is doing a secure erase in Parted Magic any different than Windows's native 'clean all' command? 'Clean all' is secure erase so basically they are the same thing. Not that you said they aren't but I'm just asking.

F22 Simpilot said:

Never use DBAN with a SSD. Writes help destroy SSDs. Although, SSDs have been made better, but you just don't want thousands upon thousands of writes on a SSD.

I used DBAN once long ago but basically it does secure erase with various algorithms and passes. So AGAIN - if DBAN performs a secure erase and you recommend 'secure erase in Parted Magic' then it's the same thing - secure erase/secure delete/wipe etc. Only difference I imagine is that DBAN does more passes or the wiping algorithms require more writes versus the 'secure erase in Parted Magic' (which you recommend) which I guess is simply 1 pass of secure erase. Pls, explain what you recommend, I'm curious. :)

F22 Simpilot said:

But with Truecrypt you need to learn and understand about Evil maid.

Have used TrueCrypt but never knew about Evil maid. What's that?

F22 Simpilot said:

If you have a platter drive you want to use DBAN. If you have a SSD you want to use secure erase in Parted Magic. Never use DBAN with a SSD. Writes help destroy SSDs. Although, SSDs have been made better, but you just don't want thousands upon thousands of writes on a SSD.

As to Ccleaner's wipe methods, they suck. I used it once and then ran some recovery software and was still able to recover the data.

If you want to be absolutely sure, and it's a platter drive, you can encrypt the drive with Truecrypt or Veracrypt first. The run DBAN. With flash-based storage like SSDs encryption is a little different since the data may still be stored on other cells and thus encryption may be redundant. If you ever chose to use whole disk encryption with a SSD it is best to install the OS, then immediately encrypt the drive with Truecrypt or Veracrypt. But with Truecrypt you need to learn and understand about Evil maid.

What data recovery software makes ccleaner wipe obsolete? I'm assuming you checked all the additional options like MFT table, cluster tips, etc.? Is there a software that will wipe free space within windows like ccleaner that actually works? DBAN downtime sucks.

In this context ... I found here Secure Erase / Wipe : Definition and Methods - Windows 7 Help Forums that

'If you don't want to wipe the entire HDD / SSD, you can do a partition-specific wipe of any single partition using the Partition Wizard free software, have a look at Option Two in the tutorial at this link below to get some ideas - Partition Wizard : Use the Bootable CD - Windows 7 Help Forums'.

Tried it and it worked exactly as described. And as highlighted - you will need to burn the ISO to a CD, it was designed for use and works best from a CD rather than a DVD. I confirm this. Tried also with a USB and it failed.

soewhaty said:

In this context ... I found here Secure Erase / Wipe : Definition and Methods - Windows 7 Help Forums that

'If you don't want to wipe the entire HDD / SSD, you can do a partition-specific wipe of any single partition using the Partition Wizard free software, have a look at Option Two in the tutorial at this link below to get some ideas - Partition Wizard : Use the Bootable CD - Windows 7 Help Forums'.

Tried it and it worked exactly as described. And as highlighted - you will need to burn the ISO to a CD, it was designed for use and works best from a CD rather than a DVD. I confirm this. Tried also with a USB and it failed.

Sounds like dban for just one partition. Wouldn't be useful to me. Also it is boot time only which is the main drawback shared with dban.

joe7dust said:

Sounds like dban for just one partition. Wouldn't be useful to me. Also it is boot time only which is the main drawback shared with dban.

Could be, but it's rather fast to clean all a 100gb partition on a speedy ssd. You did mention long waiting with DBAN so ... not sure what DBAN's algorithms are but this one is fast indeed.

No big deal with being boot time only - slot in a cd, 3 clicks and in no time you're there :)

To answer the questions here.

The clean command as I understand it just zeros the HDD. There is no data written over the current data at all, making recovery very easy. DBAN on the other hand, while very slow will overwrite the data many times making data recovery much more harder. Like I said, you don't want to use DBAN on a flash-based medium as it can only handle so many writes. With a SSD you want to use Parted Magic's secure erase option. Secure Erase - Powerful, easy to use, and inexpensive.

Evil Maid: The Invisible Things Lab's blog: Evil Maid goes after TrueCrypt!

I have used Ccleaner's wipe options and then ran Recuva and all the files were still able to be recovered.

F22 Simpilot said:

To answer the questions here.

The clean command as I understand it just zeros the HDD. There is no data written over the current data at all, making recovery very easy. DBAN on the other hand, while very slow will overwrite the data many times making data recovery much more harder. Like I said, you don't want to use DBAN on a flash-based medium as it can only handle so many writes. With a SSD you want to use Parted Magic's secure erase option. Secure Erase - Powerful, easy to use, and inexpensive.

Evil Maid: The Invisible Things Lab's blog: Evil Maid goes after TrueCrypt!

I have used Ccleaner's wipe options and then ran Recuva and all the files were still able to be recovered.

I ran clean all and it took over 24 hours. I mainly did this as a way of "super defrag" because my defrag got stuck on 27% for over 12 hours with 15% space left on the drive. If I was paranoid I would have rendered my pc unuseable by doing dban or removing the drive and physically destroying.


Are you saying there is no benefit to running clean all instead of clean because file recovery software will just be able to get it? I know there is theoretically the potential to recover after a zero fill because of residual magnetics left from the previous bit setting however I was under the impression that this type of recovery was general only used by law enforcement / NSA and it required special equipment and microscopic analysis not just a sata connector and some software...


Not sure if anyone has ever tried to boot DBAN in hyper V or some Virtual environment but if I could actually use the PC during the process then DBAN would have been my go to.

joe7dust said:

Are you saying there is no benefit to running clean all instead of clean because file recovery software will just be able to get it?

From what I understood in several discussion in the forum here - 'clean all' actually does write zeros, whereas 'clean' only marks data to be written zeros to later on when there's demand for that. So there's the difference. Seems to me like full format VS quick format.

soewhaty said:

From what I understood in several discussion in the forum here - 'clean all' actually does write zeros, whereas 'clean' only marks data to be written zeros to later on when there's demand for that. So there's the difference. Seems to me like full format VS quick format.

" I have used Ccleaner's wipe options and then ran Recuva and all the files were still able to be recovered."


Well if everything is to be believed in this thread then neither CCleaner, cleanall, or dban 1 pass Simple are effective. And I still never got a response on whether residual magnetic recovery is possible after a zero fill using a SATA connection and recovery software.