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Need a secure wipe on an HDD before selling, ideas?

Just boot any linux, and "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sd[...] bs=1M" if you need to super secure wipe [multiple pass with random data] because someone is going to disassemble the drive and analyze residual write strength, you probably have other problems already ...
 
I never let a HDD leave my poession without getting DoD 5220.22-M erased. Unless it doesn't work, then it gets disassembled and mutilated. Can't be too safe with data these days.

And yeah, 4TB will take days to erase.
 
I do 100% verification on top of that to make sure nothing is left. If verification fails, I may give it one more chance or else to the shredder it goes.
 
That's allot of work. Might just as well use them until they reach end of life and destroy it
 
Not really. I drop the drive in a eSATA hot swap dock, load up Kill disk, select the drive and erase it. I usually do it in my server because it's running 24/7 anyway. Have to be super-duper careful not to select the wrong drive though. The actual erase takes a lot longer than getting it going.

I probably have half a dozen drives here (all erased) that out lived their service life (capacity too low).
 
the fastest most secure way is to encrypt the drive with light weight encryption something like blowfish
then 'loose' the key(I advise using a password gen set at maxium with no less then 18chars) and delete the partitions
any attempts are data recovery will result in bunch of encrypted garbage assuming you could even reconstruct the data enough to get a block of read-able information out of it

if you are super duber paranoid you could follow that with a dban pass there is no kill like over kill
 
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Pretty sure that doesn't do anything to abandoned data on the platter(s). It's that data that poses the most threat.
 
VeraCrypt Volume Format Specification
The format of file-hosted volumes is identical to the format of partition/device-hosted volumes (however, the "volume header", or key data, for a system partition/drive is stored in the last 512 bytes of the first logical drive track). VeraCrypt volumes have no "signature" or ID strings. Until decrypted, they appear to consist solely of random data.
Free space on each VeraCrypt volume is filled with random data when the volume is created.* The random data is generated as follows: Right before VeraCrypt volume formatting begins, a temporary encryption key and a temporary secondary key (XTS mode) are generated by the random number generator (see the section Random Number Generator). The encryption algorithm that the user selected is initialized with the temporary keys. The encryption algorithm is then used to encrypt plaintext blocks consisting of random bytes generated by the random number generator. The encryption algorithm operates in XTS mode (see the section Hidden Volume). The resulting ciphertext blocks are used to fill (overwrite) the free space on the volume. The temporary keys are stored in RAM and are erased after formatting finishes.
 
Sure, some encryption software will do the whole drive but most only do it as new data is created/modified. Unless you fill the drive completely, there is the potential that old data may be layered on the unused space.

You're far better off just destroying the data (e.g. DoD 5220.22-M). It's far more effective at changing the magnetism of the platters and also has minimal CPU load and RAM load while doing it. On top of that, it requires zero header (includes partitions and MBR/GPT) data on the drive. The entire drive is sanitized--no bit left unmodified at least twice. Software recovery is impossible if the erase is 100% verified.
 
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Well in any case, I have started wiping it with CCleaner. I am starting with 1 pass to see what that gets me. After it's done I will start up Recuva and see what it finds. As far as time goes, not too bad for 4TB.
 

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FordGT90Concept said:
Not really. I drop the drive in a eSATA hot swap dock, load up Kill disk, select the drive and erase it. I usually do it in my server because it's running 24/7 anyway. Have to be super-duper careful not to select the wrong drive though. The actual erase takes a lot longer than getting it going.

I probably have half a dozen drives here (all erased) that out lived their service life (capacity too low).
Click to expand...

the platters make nice coasters

I usually just 2048 bit full encrypt the drive drive remove the partition remake partition and full format job done recuvva finds nothing or just gobbledygook and unless you have the resources of the NSA good luck in making head nor tails of it or I just pull it to bits and turn the platters into coasters
 
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They have really, really sharp edges so unless you grind those smooth, I wouldn't recommend it. Also, because they're a polished surface, they show *everything*, especially fingerprints.
 
FordGT90Concept said:
They have really, really sharp edges so unless you grind those smooth, I wouldn't recommend it. Also, because they're a polished surface, they show *everything*, especially fingerprints.
Click to expand...
o_O I have a couple dozen on my desk at work, and have dismantled many times that many... never found one with sharp edges... they're all really polished and smooth...
 
I have, they're razor sharp. Probably depends on manufacturer. Maybe even model. I think the last one I recall being sharp was a Hitachi, I think about 250 GB.
 
I have one from 80GB to 2TB HDD's from Hitachi, Seagate, Western Digital and Samsung they all have smooth edges not sharp and yeah they're polished to mirror finish and to keep them that way try a little clear polyurethane works wonders
 
Fresh platters are fun, they are so smooth and perfectly flat, you can press them together and they stick pretty well.
 
Athlonite said:
the platters make nice coasters

I usually just 2048 bit full encrypt the drive drive remove the partition remake partition and full format job done recuvva finds nothing or just gobbledygook and unless you have the resources of the NSA good luck in making head nor tails of it or I just pull it to bits and turn the platters into coasters
Click to expand...
When my drives outlive usefulness I love a couple of passes with my degaussing coil.
Besides that I like a couple of dban passes. (No real important stuff to nuke)
 
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