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Subject:
Re: Hard Drive Formatting
From:
Bob Wright <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
PCBUILD - Personal Computer Hardware discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 21 Sep 2000 20:33:05 -0600
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (49 lines) 
At 09:25 AM 09/21/2000, Tim Turay wrote:
>I am looking for utilities that can guarantee me that the hard drive will be
>formatted.  So that when you try to use a recover utility you will not be able to find
>anything on the hard drive.
>
>So far I have:
>
>1. Normal format of C: and D: drives.
>2. Destroyed the partitions and re-created the partitions (different sizes).
>3. Normal format of C: and D: drives.
>4. Used a shareware formatting program that over wrote cluster by cluster.
>5. Re-created the partitions again.
>6. Installed NT on the system.
>7. Installed Windows 2000 on the system.
>8. Installed NT on the system.
>9. Installed NT on the system.
>10. Installed Windows 2000 on the system.
>11. Used PowerQuest's lost and found product (a DOS level utility), found multiple
>directories.  Since it was a trial version unable to restore any of them.
>
>Any ideas whould be great,


No one has brought this subject up in a few years now.  The procedure
you are considering is called a Government Wipe to sanitize a hard drive
based on the US Department of Defense document 5220-22-M, National
Industrial Security Program Operating Manual.

The steps for a Government Wipe are as follows:

1  The data is overwritten with all 0s, and then overwritten by all 1s.
2  The first step is repeated at least seven times.
3  Then a random value, or any other value chosen from 0 to 255, is written.
4  The value written is verified to insure that it was written correctly.
5  Then, the entire process is repeated at least seven times.

We have never kept a utility for this purpose on The NOSPIN Group
web site as it is a rarely requested program.  I know that Norton
Utilities by Symantec:  http://www.symantec.com  includes a program
for this purpose.   There are a great many others available on most
shareware sites like ZDNET or PCWorld...

      Bob Wright
The NOSPIN Group

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