On Fri, 2010-10-22 at 21:50 +0100, Phil Thompson wrote: > Christopher Sandles wrote: > > > I'm Chris and I'm new to the LUG, so you won't know me. In regard to > > your sister's Windows hard drive, securely deleting the drive involves > > more than just wiping (or reformatting) the drive, since all this does > > is remove the partition and file tables, leaving the original files > > potentially recoverable. > > > > In the past I've used "Darik's Boot and Nuke" program (www.dban.org), > > which downloads as a 10MB disc image and runs like a mini-operating > > system with one sole purpose: to destroy all data. I never had any > > state secrets or criminal activity to cover-up, but it was an > > interesting experiment just to see how it worked. Perhaps we could try > > this? > > In my experience DBAN takes forever. > > The command 'shred' in Linux is a lot faster, and can also do a > partition rather than a whole disk. > > Phil
Yes, admittedly, I only used DBAN on an old 13GB hard drive, and whilst it was VERY thorough, on a larger device, could take infinitely longer. I guess its a toss-up between time and thoroughness. As long as you're not trying to cover-up state secrets or criminal activity, perhaps DBAN is only appropriate for very paranoid users! I've not used "shred" but I understand it'll do a faster and generally thorough job, and given that it can run off a live Linux disc), this might be a better solution for Stuart. Chris _______________________________________________ Peterboro mailing list Peterboro@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/peterboro
