On 17 Apr 2006 at 15:12, Venkat Viswanathan wrote:

> on a side note, if one wants to do away with a about to die HDD (say
> some bad sectors) and  it is just thrown away AFTER FORMATTING does it
> mean no data can be recovered ? (except of course the data put in by
> the manufacturer of the hdd... all hdd manufacturers reserve some
> space  and put their own stuff). 

  No.  An OS-level format will re-initialize the file system, but the only 
way to ensure that files are erased is to run something that will actually 
overwrite all of the space on the drive.

  There are verious "secure delete" utilities which do this, available 
either alone or as part of larger packages (e.g. Norton Systemworks includes 
one).

  Many of these packages include a "multiple pass" option.  If only a single 
pass is used, old data may be recoverable if the drive platter is removed 
and examined under an electron microscope.  If you believe your old data may 
interest someone with that kind of resource available, multiple passes may 
make the recovery even harder.

David Gillett

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