[nycbug-talk] wipe drive

[michael]

I was looking for a utility to securely wipe some old hard drives before disposal.  I wanted a bootable CD that I could put in my bag with my other uilities for future use.  I wanted a 'quick' option and a 'complete' option on the wipes... I am paranoid enough to wipe the drives, but, not always enough to let the wipe run for several days.

I found this, http://dban.sourceforge.net/

>From the site:
"Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction."


My Results ---------
box: Pentium Pro 200MHz, 8Gig SCSI drive
(Western Digital WDE4360-1807A3)

method: Quick (one pass of writing zeros)
duration: 20 minutes

method: Department of Defense Short Method
duration: 45 minutes

method: Gutmann (35 passes)
duration: not enough patience

conclusion: clean and easy to use, many choices for security levels

Michael
p.s. Does anybody know how to check on the data-be-gone part?






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