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Questions tagged [secure-delete]

33 questions
98
votes
17 answers

Does drilling a hole into a hard drive suffice to make its data unrecoverable?

We have a lot of PCs in the company and nobody wants to wipe a multitude of hard drives. We also have many apprentice toolmakers who really want to destroy things. Thus, every couple of months, our apprentices receive two heavy baskets of hard…
RubbelDieKatz
  • 931
22
votes
3 answers

Securely wipe an entire Linux server with itself

I have remote ssh access and root access. I do not have physical access. I'm not looking for solutions involving booting into anything, I want to do this from what is currently running. OS is SL6. Is there a way to load everything needed into RAM,…
cat pants
  • 2,363
19
votes
8 answers

Securely wipe a headless remote linux server

I'm about to terminate my relationship with my hosting provider of many years, but I'd like to securely wipe the box before I do. This is a dedicated server running Debian on a single EXT3 drive and although I have root access, I can't boot…
notpeter
  • 3,535
16
votes
4 answers

Wipe is very slow. Too little entropy?

I have to hand off a Laptop including its hard disc. Since it was not encrypted I wanted to wipe it at least quickly. I know this is not optimal on SSD, but I thought better than just plain readable. Now I am running wipe of a live USB stick and it…
user857990
  • 297
12
votes
3 answers

Potential pitfalls associated with securely deleting SSD disks

I need to decommission two SSD disks from one of my Linux hosted servers. In order to safely delete data stored in the disks I was planning to use: hdparm --security-erase. I read this document and it suggested not having any disks connected to the…
Matías
  • 457
12
votes
3 answers

Secure Delete on SSD

Will a "traditional" secure delete utility that overwrites physical sectors on a magnetic HDD work on an SSD, or will the SSD simply "remap" the sector to avoid the expensive delete operation and leave the data intact for an undetermined period?
ScottS
  • 223
9
votes
7 answers

Why does everybody recommend Dban over more fundamental methods?

When people ask on how to wipe a drive, it almost seems as if the default answer is DBAN and I am not really sure why. Especially when doing commands like dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda dcfldd pattern="00"…
Recursion
  • 629
6
votes
5 answers

Deep Format of a Harddrive on a Linux System

I've got an original Asus Eee PC Netbook that I'd like to sell. When I've sold old computers in the past, I've typically done a deep/secure/zeroing out style format. How can I do this on a Linux Netbook? I'm looking for The command that will let…
Alana Storm
  • 468
5
votes
7 answers

Write random data to random sectors of Hard Drive

I have a hard drive that went bad and before I send it for RMA I want to wipe as much as possible from it. I tried using windows utilities and also did dd of /dev/random. The problem is I can't wait for either of those solutions to finish as the…
mpaw
  • 245
5
votes
5 answers

WipeDrive Utility?

What is the best and fastest wipe drive (zero fill) utility that can be burned to a CD?
Kredns
  • 506
5
votes
16 answers

What are some free utilities for securely wiping data from a floppy disk?

I have a stack of old floppy disks in my server room and before disposing or donating them, I want to make sure they are cleaned. Can anyone suggest some free utilities (Windows or Linux) for securely wiping data from a floppy disk?
user6844
4
votes
1 answer

Effectiveness of sdmem on a VPS?

Does someone know if the sdmem program (part of the secure-delete tools) is effective on a VPS? I'd like to be sure I'm wiping certain private keys on a KVM VPS. I don't know why it would not be, I think the RAM operates the same, there's just less…
stone.212
  • 367
3
votes
3 answers

Remotely Deleting/Wiping a Laptop

A client of mine wants to be able to remotely wipe employees company laptops upon termination. Does anybody know a good way of going about that? I know Lojack for laptops has this capability...
Brett G
  • 2,023
3
votes
3 answers

Disk wipe preferences

I manage a pool of systems that are loaded with software and sent to potential customers for evaluations which often land sensitive information on the drives. Before shipping them back, they typically like a standard wipe to be run to clean out the…
hmvm123
  • 31
3
votes
2 answers

How can I secure erase a drive using Powershell?

Does Powershell have a built-in way to secure erase a disk? By secure erase, I mean writing random data or all zeros to the entire disk. By disk, I mean the whole physical disk, not individual files, mounted volumes or filesystems. I found…
ryancdotnet
  • 141
1
2 3