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Questions tagged [secure-delete]

31 questions
100
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
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21
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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
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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
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16
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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
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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
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11
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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
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8
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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
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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…
Alan Storm
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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…
Marcin
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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
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5
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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
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
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3
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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
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2
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1 answer

securely erasing files on a network share

If I delete a file on a network share from a windows client with something like eraser, will it overwrite the actual blocks of data of said file over and over or will it write out all over the place as it is told to write zeros? How accurate would…
lotsofjam
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2
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2 answers

Does there exist a bootable USB key with shred?

Does anyone know if there exist a bootable USB key with shred that detects all harddrives and shreds them automatically? It would be great if it had a config file, where I could set the shred value for -n.
Sandra
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