Data Eraser

Looking for a Data eraser to remove everthing from my hard drive either in
Vista or a PE enviroment with no chance of recovery. Getting ready to give
my laptop to another person and will be using another laptop.

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 23:52:50 +1000, "Ben Ramsay"
<> wrote:

>Looking for a Data eraser to remove everthing from my hard drive either in
>Vista or a PE enviroment with no chance of recovery. Getting ready to give
>my laptop to another person and will be using another laptop.

Because you said "no chance" I have to tell you there is no such
thing. Once data is written to a hard drive it remains there forever.
You can OVERWRITE data, many application write patterns of zeros and
ones and they all are pretty much the same. The more passes they make
(at least 7 is good according to minimal US Fed standards) unless
you're the CIA, NSA or some similar organization willing to invest
lots of time and resources such a "wiping" of your hard drive should
be more than enough for casual users.

CAUTION: EnCase® Forensic, (over $1400) the premium law enforcement
software of choice and no longer sold to the public can still pull out
traces of data overwritten multiple times. I've seen it first hand
years ago and was quite impressed testing after wiping a hard drive as
said above EnCase still found "evidence" foolish people may have
thought was taken care of.

So if you are WAY paranoid the only guaranteed way to be sure no data
remains on the hard drive is to physically destroy the drive. Anything
else, in the right hands with the right software you never know what
can be recovered.

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 23:52:50 +1000, "Ben Ramsay"
<> wrote:

> Looking for a Data eraser to remove everthing from my hard drive either in
> Vista or a PE enviroment with no chance of recovery. Getting ready to give
> my laptop to another person and will be using another laptop.



That depends on what you mean by "no chance of recovery." There are
tools that make it much harder to get data from the drive, but not
impossible. There is always a remnant of what was written still
present on the disk, and using sophisticated data recovery techniques,
a determined invader can sometimes recover it. For that reason, the US
government doesn't rely on any software techniques to destroy really
sensitive data, but physically melts the drive in a furnace.

Of course few of us have to worry about "determined invaders," In your
case, you'll have to determine what you consider adequate protection,
but if you are looking for "no chance of recovery," be aware that that
level doesn't exist.

If very good, but not perfect, security is adequate, Google will
supply links to many programs that will overwrite the data on the
drive multiple times. They are all probably equally good, and there's
not a lot to choose between them.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

I have a cutting torch that will remove the possibility of data recovery.
But that is about the only way that nothing can "ever" be recovered by
someone with the right equipment.

--
A Professional Amateur...If anyone knew it all, none of would be here!

Change Alpha to Numeric to reply
"Ken Blake, MVP" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 23:52:50 +1000, "Ben Ramsay"
> <> wrote:
>
>> Looking for a Data eraser to remove everthing from my hard drive either
>> in
>> Vista or a PE enviroment with no chance of recovery. Getting ready to
>> give
>> my laptop to another person and will be using another laptop.
>
>
>
> That depends on what you mean by "no chance of recovery." There are
> tools that make it much harder to get data from the drive, but not
> impossible. There is always a remnant of what was written still
> present on the disk, and using sophisticated data recovery techniques,
> a determined invader can sometimes recover it. For that reason, the US
> government doesn't rely on any software techniques to destroy really
> sensitive data, but physically melts the drive in a furnace.
>
> Of course few of us have to worry about "determined invaders," In your
> case, you'll have to determine what you consider adequate protection,
> but if you are looking for "no chance of recovery," be aware that that
> level doesn't exist.
>
> If very good, but not perfect, security is adequate, Google will
> supply links to many programs that will overwrite the data on the
> drive multiple times. They are all probably equally good, and there's
> not a lot to choose between them.
>
> --
> Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
> Please Reply to the Newsgroup

I will rephrase my question, with the previous question inclusif but
modified to say that what is the best software for data removal from either
a windows enviroment or a PE enviroment. I currently use east tec eraser
2008, however I can seem to find a way to get it to operate in a PE
enviroment, this is ultimately whare I want to place it as I can erase my
drive and install a fresh copy of my os.

if you just want to format the drive, it will erase the data.
once you have installed the new copy of whatever OS you are using, the disk
will be overwritten and whatever data that was there is effectively gone.
it can be recovered somewhat by special software fornnsic tools, but if you
are using it in your machine, that shouldn't be a worry.
no hacker can access the old data without physical access to your machine.

"Ben Ramsay" <> wrote in message
news:06BB7AB2-4015-4B43-9E66-...
>I will rephrase my question, with the previous question inclusif but
>modified to say that what is the best software for data removal from either
>a windows enviroment or a PE enviroment. I currently use east tec eraser
>2008, however I can seem to find a way to get it to operate in a PE
>enviroment, this is ultimately whare I want to place it as I can erase my
>drive and install a fresh copy of my os.

I will rephrase my question, with the previous question inclusif but
modified to say that what is the best software for data removal from either
a windows enviroment or a PE enviroment. I currently use east tec eraser
2008, however I can seem to find a way to get it to operate in a PE
enviroment, this is ultimately whare I want to place it as I can erase my
drive and install a fresh copy of my os.