[lug] drive free space "wiper" recommendation

[Sean Brady]

As a former pc tech, you need to do the best wipe that you can on the entire drive.

Remember there are hashes stored in different places, and index data combined with predictive heuristic algorithms can recover data you didn't know was sensitive.  Wipe the entire drive with the best gnu tools you can find. A completely wiped drive normally will not void a warranty that is honored on hardware failure.

Besides, what's worth more, your warranty or your identity?

My two cents. Best of luck to you.

----- Reply message -----
From: "Anthony Foiani" <tkil at scrye.com>
Date: Sat, Oct 9, 2010 7:43 pm
Subject: [lug] drive free space "wiper" recommendation
To: "Boulder (Colorado) Linux Users Group -- General Mailing List" <lug at lug.boulder.co.us>

karl horlen <horlenkarl at yahoo.com> writes:

> i need to ship a computer back that's under warranty. i've already
> moved / deleted the files off of the drive that i deemed sensitive.
>
> can anybody recommend a good, free, non spyware based utility to
> help me "wipe" the free space left by my previous deletes and moves?
> dban looks like an *entire* drive wipe utility.  i don't want to
> permanently delete the entire drive, just the unused space.
>
> fyi, this is a win xp based system.

Since this is a Linux-centric list, might I suggest a Linux-based boot CD?

I haven't tried these, but from a quick google search:

  http://www.sysresccd.org/System-tools

    "Secure Deletion
       Several wiping tools (such as shred and wipe) ensure that files
       are really erased from the hard disk."

  http://www.dban.org/

    "Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot disk 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."

Even something like Fedora Live should have drive-wiping tools, since
"shred" is a part of coreutils.

Good luck,
t.
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