Low Level Format Question

[Laurijan]

Hello!

My boss at work wants me to format harddisks so that the information on them cannot be restored..

I downloaded Active@ Killdisk FREE suite to do that task.. the free version only makes Low Level Formats which i have done already for several SATA harddisks..

I would like to know if i can securly low level format IDE hardisks as well cause i have heared from a former employee of this firm i am in that IDE disk which are low level formated become unusable..

Is this true and which program can format securly all HDDs? I would like a free program which makes FBI or something like that approved formats so that nothing can restore them..

Laurijan

 

[Deleted member 38767]

Low level format is basically setting all and any bit of information on the plates to 0. There should not be problems with IDE drives, but I've never try it on one so I can't be sure. Most of the manufacturers provide some software witch you can use to low level format their HDDs and will have a list of supported drives. I think that running low level format for 2-3 times will be more than sufficient.

 

[thraxed]

Rent a yacht, when your over the deepest trench in the ocean, throw your hard drives overboard.

Though Its pretty safe to low level ide drives w/o worries. Remember low level just writes 1 or 0s to the whole drive. Its nothing intrusive. I kinda have to laugh at your former employee for that like saying if ya fill up and ide disk its going to go bad.. Plus there really not a difference between ide/sata drives internally.

The more times you low-level a drive the more it makes it harder for software recovery. There are extreme ways to recover data but it costs a fortune and i doubt your information worth it.

 

[robal]

You can't damage HDD with low level format.

However, simple low-level formatting is not enough to make data fully unrecoverable.


Search Google or Tucows for "secure HDD wipe", there are plenty of utilities that do the job right (special format which sets each bit 0 to 1 and back at least 7 times). There's even US DoD standard for wiping HDDs if you feel VERY concerned about your data (and it takes loooong time)

This seems a little overkill to me, but apparently, a data that resided longer on HDD leaves an small detectable magnetic background behind recent data (ie.: format or simple wipe).

 

[candle_86]

depends, low level formatting for a time did cause issues, there are horrory stories after the 1gb barrier of people low level formating and there drive not reading right anymore, though id image those days are gone

 

[Laurijan]

Thanks for the info.. i am really informed now thx to you!

 

[Polarman]

I usually use the zerofill utility from the HDD's manufacturer. It test the drives as well.

 

[Katanai]

Download the ultimate boot cd http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ and use a nuker. It basically does the same thing only 3 times over. That should do it.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

For whatever hard drives they are just get on the manufacturer's website and download their utility. When you load those up there are options to zeroize the hard drive.

To add, if the government wanted the data off the hard drive bad enough they could still get it regardless of wipes.