How do I wipe a HDD?

Hi,
I'm planning on selling my Vista desktop HP PC.
I don't know who's hands it's going to end up in, so to protect my passwords/credit card numbers etc. I've been researching into wiping the Hard Drive and doing a clean install.

I have found this program called DBAN which is meant to destruct data. I haven't ever tried to wipe a hard drive and do a clean windows install, so I just want to make sure I'm doing this in the correct way. (please suggest anything that makes it easier for me, or if im doing anything wrong).

My HP PC wasn't supplied with a Vista disk, but I have found within the Control Panel there is a HP Recovery Manager where I can make recovery disks, recover computer back to original factory condition etc.

Is the recovery disk, the same as a Vista disk?

If anyone knows of any guides I can print, or can tell me how to go about this process in detail, it would be much appreciated.

Many thanks

 

The recovery disc isn't entirely the same as it will recreate the factory install, including all programmes, utilities that HP supplied with the laptop.
I know that for Sony the recovery discs can also recreate the recovery partition.

-> In your case, you could DBAN the C drive - but I would be potentially weary that it could knock out the recovery partition too.

The best option would possibly be to create recovery discs, then replace the internal drive with a new HDD and installing the OS from the recovery discs.

This will give you a drive to use as an external drive, and a guaranteed clean drive to sell off.

 

That's a really good idea, as I'm planning on getting an iMac and wanted to get an external hard drive to backup onto.
Is it easy to replace a hard drive with a small pc knowledge base?

 

mac... yuck (yes, I am anti apple)

-> On the PC side:

Depends on the laptop manufacturer in the end, but most laptops tend to have a reasonably easily accessible HDD.
-> My Vaio SZ is a bit more difficult -> keyboard off, palmrest off, then 4 screws and I get my HDD.
On my mother's laptop it's a flap on the bottom with 4 screws and 2 screws that hold the HDD caddy in it's place, on my old laptop it's one screw and then I think two screws for the caddy or maybe even none.

A general statement is therefore not possible - but overall it's reasonably easy - just be careful and make sure you loose no screws, then nothing should be able to go wrong.

 

or, just install the full load of an OS and make the page space as big as all of the remaining space on the drive.

Absent a 'threat' from some agency that has access to the factory test jigs used by the drive makers, there are plenty of fast ways to effectively wipe a drive.

Properly wiping SSDs are a whole 'nuther matter though.

 

??? -> You never know if someone isn't curious as to what was on the drive.

And wiping a SSD should be far easier - because once something is overwritten once on a SSD it is gone.

 

making the rest as page file is not going to wipe the data.

A twist of that scheme would be to do a full format at the time of installation(which would wipe things out but took quite a bit of time).

If the drive is a SF, you may not have erase the old content though by just overwritten 0 or 1 to each and every sector. because your old data may use say 10 blocks of NAND whereas your new 0s may only take 1 block. the rest 9 block is most likely left untouched until they are needed.

The only secure way to erase an SSD is ATA SE.

 

Do a search for Parted Magic, download it, and burn it to a CD. The Erase Disk program on it can perform a secure erase using the built in ATA SE features (if your hard drive supports it). It can also do a multi-pass wipe if you can't do an internal ATA SE wipe.

I use it for wiping SSDs using the internal ATA SE command. Works well, and is the proper way for erasing an SSD (and HDDs as well).

 

Also, Parted Magic is free & open-source, based on GParted & parted.

 

Nope. Plenty of recent articles pointing out that SSDs do NOT behave the same way as HDDs when you write or erase data.

Remember that SSD controllers currently do a lot of work to minimize writes (have to conserve those limited write cycles).

 

Best way.

CMRR - Secure Erase

 

Indeed, they do do wear levelling, but if you write at least it's size or twice it's size to the SSD it should fill every cell.
Also, -> Trim should completely remove any data leftovers.

 

Not necessary. I have mentioned that 0s in SF may only use a fraction of the size of the actual NAND. And the drive can do nothing on TRIM. Also, TRIM only affect visible areas, not the spare working buffer areas.

Secure Erase is the only 'contracted' way for the HDD/SSD to erase its content.

 

I think it was missed that you are selling your desktop, therefore replacing the hard drive on your desktop, as opposed to a laptop.

Replacing a hard drive on a desktop is typically pretty easy. There are numerous how-to's online, but the premise is, once you remove the side panel of your tower, locate your hard drive, remove whatever is securing it (normally a few screws), unplug from power, and voila. To install the new one, it's the same in reverse order.

Definitely a procedure most anyone can do with little to no worry.

 

Write incompressible data or simpler: Don't use Sandforce.

 

You can use HD Tune's Erase feature. Stating the PDF manual that comes with it:

When files are deleted from a hard disk, the data is not actually erased. Only the references to those files are deleted. By using recovery software it will be possible to recover many or all files after the files have been deleted or even after a full format. So if you sell, return or give away your hard disk
someone may be able to recover sensitive data from the disk. The erase function [of HD Tune] securely erases the disc by overwriting the entire contents of the disk with a specified pattern.

There are four different delete methods:

Zero fill (1 pass), random fill (1 pass), DoD 5220.22M (7 passes), Guttman (35 passes). The zero and random fill should be sufficient for most purposes. For more securely deleting data you can use the other two methods. Completely erasing the hard disk may take several hours. If you're using one of the multi-pass delete methods you can select at which pass the erasing should begin.

During the erase process write errors will be reported in a similar way as in the Error Scan function. To prevent accidental data loss, the write test can only be performed on a disk with no partitions (see the benchmark topic for more information).

By clicking the verify option the erased disk will be read and the contents will be verified. A green block shows the sector is readable and contains the expected data (ie. all 0's for the Zero Fill method). A red block indicates the sector is either unreadable or the data does not match the expected data.


Hope this helps