How to permanently delete files

[Dark Atheist]

You'd be surprised what they can recover data from. The only surefire way is to destroy the magnetic surface utterly. Turn it in to fine powder

at that temp it melts metal - i would thinkg it would do the trick on the platters inside a hdd

 

[fitz]

Here is how I rank various methods in effectiveness:
1) Either using a high power degaussing unit or complete/utter destruction - needs to be grinded to a pulp and beyond. Not practical for most home users.
2) Utilizing the secure erase command built into most ATA drives using a utility like Secure Erase which erases data at the hardware/firmware level (as opposed to software overwrites)
3) Software Disk overwrite utilities like DBAN (Boot & Nuke as mentioned before)

Overwrite utilities have some deficiencies in the completeness of destruction. Take a look at various articles:
NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology)Guidelines for Meda Sanitization - pdf link
http://advosys.ca/viewpoints/2006/07/hard-drive-secure-erase/
http://ultraparanoid.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/securely-erase-hard-drives/

 

[binoyxj]

Nice find fitz.

 

[LordOfLA]

at that temp it melts metal - i would thinkg it would do the trick on the platters inside a hdd

Depends if glass melts at 800C or not

 

[LordOfLA]

Secure Erase[/URL] which erases data at the hardware/firmware level (as opposed to software overwrites)

Doesn't detect any of my SATA disks at all

 

[Dark Atheist]

well after he cooked the drive he poured out - all i saw was white hot metal before he started using it for his sculpture, like to see the fuzz get stuff back from that

Most hard drives come with their own errasing stuff now, sat directly on the drive, cant remeber what the name of the prog was that allowed you to access it though

 

[LordOfLA]

disk platters these days are glass with thin layer of aluminium, followed by a thin magnetic layer, followed by a lubricating layer

 

[fitz]

Doesn't detect any of my SATA disks at all

weird.. almost every disk that I've tried made in the last 5 or 6 years has worked like a charm..

edit:
want me to loan you our degausser we have at work? Makes the hair all over your body tingle when it discharges!

 

[LordOfLA]

well it would certainly make my periodic zero-fill and reinstall quicker

 

[Dark Atheist]

might need to clean mine out and do a reinstall soon

 

[fitz]

well, after degaussing a drive, the drive becomes unusable.. it is a destructive form of data sanitization.. unlike software overwrites, deguassing is a permanent form of data destruction.

 

[kcnychief]

I know this is a bit old but wanted to share this article as I found it interesting, and related to our debate above

http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/01/08/hard-drives-destroyed-wiped/

 

[American Zombie]

You can set CCleaner to securely erase files.

Open CCleaner > options > setting > secure deletion

Choose how many passes you desire.