Information After Reformatt???

[AaronMcarthur]

Someone told me the other day that after you re-format a computer, that you can still find some of the files and what the person was viewing on the last windows or OS. Also they mention, maybe if you re-formatted about 7 times, your information should prolly be gone then. Is this ture?

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Only if you have got special software & then it would want to be pretty good.

 

[Lonman]

Yeah... it's possible to unformat a drive too. If you're concerned about it... get a utilitly that will perform a government wipe on the drive. It will write to it seven times which will effectively wipe out what was there. I don't go to that extreme, but i will do an occasional wipe of 1 or 2 passes.

 

[AaronMcarthur]

Do you recommend any programs like the ones your talking about or have any links?????

 

[Lonman]

norton wipeinfo

 

[Lonman]

bcwipe < freebie and what i use.

 

[AaronMcarthur]

Thanks, I really appreciate your help. When you said fill a hard drive did u mean like fill up the whole hard-drive then re-format ten times?

 

[Lonman]

get one of those wipers... it will do what you want... make anything unretrievable... and i mean by ANY means.

 

[AaronMcarthur]

Yes! man this is sweet, how could the FBI get data up to 8 times when re-format is suppose to take the info. off?

 

[Lonman]

all a format does is reset some basic stuff for the most part. Like deleting a file, when you delete a file it's not gone, it just has a special character writting at the front of it so that space on the hard drive is freed up... it's not 'gone' until something gets written over the same spot again... that could take days or weeks in some instances.

 

[Hipster Doofus]

AaronMcarthur what have you been up to? If you are that paranoid it might be time to go out for a walk & get some fresh air. 😛

 

[AaronMcarthur]

Ok, I appreciate the way you guys explained it to me well. Maybe this BC Wipe will work and do as I need it to.

 

[iamtaylormade]

The reason you can still retrieve info from a formatted hard drive is this: When you re-format a drive that had data (any files) on it. The actual drive is not erased in the true sense of the word. The FAT is changed and each "pointer" of each sector is changed to essentially show that there is no data stored in that area. However, the data itself is not changed until you re-write over that area with other data. Also, when you utilize a sector on the drive and that file does not fully use the sector(s) then there is extra space at the end of the sector(s) that is called slack space or simply "slack". Portions of files/data can be retrieved from this area as well. I'm assuming that you really don't have any info that the FBI would be concerned with. If you need to keep the typical prying eyes from info on a formatted hard drive, go with any wipe utility and if you are really paranoid, use a govt standard wipe. These wipes usually will fill your drive with a series of 1's and 0's (data) and this will show as useless nonsense to anyone that would attempt to re-assemble the code.

 

[ikester7579]

This is the FBI we coming to get you! LOL LOL.
Just run a big magnet over it. garunteed to get rid of everything. Though I do not know if it will hurt the hard drive. But it will sure erase it.

 

[silent_bob]

u can recover data from a formatted HDD using 'Easy recovery'. It works a treat!!

 

[Geffy]

Originally posted by catch23
The FBI is the only agency whic h can get data off a hard drive after that many formats...they've said the only true way to rid of data is to COMPLETELY (down to the last bit) fill a hard drive, and format it, 10 times over.

Catch I highly doubt that the only agency capable is the FBI. In the USA, the NSA will be able to as well as the ATF but on less formats.

Outside the USA, the Brits MI5 and 6 will be able to do it, the French, Germans and others.

Silent_bob, you can only use Easy Recovery on a single format. You can also recover using EasyRecovery from a Drive with no File Allocation Table.

 

[silent_bob]

Gtgartside - I realize this but thought i would stik my cents worth in anyway!!

😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

 

[Geffy]

Bob, I thought you knew but thought that I would make sure that everyone else did as well.