Good article on securely wiping disks

fox · December 15, 2019, 07:31:46 AM

I came across this article about different ways to securely wipe a drive. There look to be some good, easy options out there; ones I didn't know about before. ~~One thing I'm uncertain about is whether they can be used on SSDs because the title states "hard drive" and the article makes no mention of SSDs. Anyone know?~~

ssfc72 · December 15, 2019, 09:09:00 AM

The article that the link took me to, does mention SSD's in in the 4th sentence and in other spots in the article. :-)

fox · December 15, 2019, 12:17:57 PM

Thanks Bill; don't know how I could have missed that.

William · December 15, 2019, 10:12:28 PM

I drill 4 holes around the spindle, and then tape over the holes to prevent glass pieces coming out.

Jason · December 16, 2019, 06:34:27 AM

Quote from: William on December 15, 2019, 10:12:28 PM
I drill 4 holes around the spindle, and then tape over the holes to prevent glass pieces coming out.

I see what you did there.

At least I think you were joking. Pretty sure Mike wants to re-use the drive either himself or to sell it, probably as part of his next laptop sale.

Thanks for the tip, Mike. I vote for flame-thrower unless you want to re-use the drive, then DBAN, if only because I've used it before. And you boot it up, hit one key and you're on your way. It also provides a nice white on blue text display that is very zen.

When I was replacing computers in the government offices, we used a commercialized form of DBAN. Only difference was that it copied a certificate with the computer information to a flash drive to prove the data was wiped should anyone ask later.

fox · December 16, 2019, 07:25:33 AM

Thanks for interpreting William's post, Jason. When I first read it, I had no idea why it was in this thread.

A lot of speculation about why I posted this article. Actually, I'm not getting rid of or selling a laptop. But I did sell a laptop recently and was looking at the best way to securely erase its SSD. I just thought this review of secure erase methods is useful, so I saved it to Pocket and posted it here.

Jason · December 16, 2019, 07:38:43 AM

Quote from: fox on December 16, 2019, 07:25:33 AM
A lot of speculation about why I posted this article. Actually, I'm not getting rid of or selling a laptop. But I did sell a laptop recently and was looking at the best way to securely erase its SSD. I just thought this review of secure erase methods is useful, so I saved it to Pocket and posted it here.

I was only speculating because I'm guessing you want to re-use the drive. William's method, while effective, at least for HDDs, will make the drive difficult to reuse (understatement). He probably mentioned it because the end of the article talks about similar destructive methods. The flamethrower is cool, too, but this is better. One word - thermite.

dougal · December 17, 2019, 12:11:51 AM

the Hammer and Drill method get top billing in this acct of events at CIRA (.ca domain agency)

https://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/news-story/9776575-internet-agency-discovers-explicit-photos-on-president-s-computer-fires-it-staff-keeps-president/

Jason · December 17, 2019, 08:35:59 PM

Quote from: dougal on December 17, 2019, 12:11:51 AM
the Hammer and Drill method get top billing in this acct of events at CIRA (.ca domain agency)

https://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/news-story/9776575-internet-agency-discovers-explicit-photos-on-president-s-computer-fires-it-staff-keeps-president/

What a bizarre story. There's a part of it which makes me think that the IT employees either didn't know how to do their job correctly or were doing a little more than there job, and it's this:

"At times during the transfer, photos appeared on the screen for an instant."

Um, that doesn't and can't happen. If you're transferring files, the only thing you might see is the file name, not the images. Unless this is some weird Mac thing - maybe Mike can tell us.

That makes me think at least one of the IT employees was browsing through the files which is highly inappropriate when your job is simply to transfer them. You ask the client, what top-level folders do you want transferred (usually the desktop and personal folders like Documents and the like) and you do it using special software. You don't need to view what you're transferring or go looking around on the client's drive at files, even the previews.

But your reference to the hammer and drill was apropos, though it took some reading to find it! lol