Author Topic: Looking for hardisk format software (Read 2819 times)

Meomix · « **on:** August 16, 2010, 11:46:54 AM »

I'm looking for software that will format the hardrive, i want to upgrade from win xp to win 7.

Pentium100 · « **Reply #1 on:** August 16, 2010, 12:58:58 PM »

Windows setup can do that. You can also use MHDD to zero-fill the drive (this will make the drive look like new - no data at all).

Lupin · « **Reply #2 on:** August 16, 2010, 01:03:53 PM »

Hard drive vendors have disk utilities that can format drives.

Mirgond · « **Reply #3 on:** August 16, 2010, 01:22:32 PM »

Or you just use the newest Ubuntu Live CD and use GParted to format the drive like you want

(Multiple Partitions etc.)

arknorth · « **Reply #4 on:** August 16, 2010, 01:27:53 PM »

Seagate offers a freebie that not only can wipe and clean your drive no matter who made it, it can also image-copy it. This allows you to bring data back once you've completed the upgrade. It also allows you to return to the XP setup, just in case your W7 install delivers an unexpected result (IE: Crash and Burn).

The program is called Seagate DiskWizard (just type diskwizard into the search on Seagate's home page).

A-N
techguy.org

nstgc · « **Reply #5 on:** August 16, 2010, 01:42:13 PM »

While I'm sure I could ask Google, since there is already a thread on the subject of formatting a hard drive, I figure I'd ask.

What would be a good program to "random-fill" a drive?

arknorth · « **Reply #6 on:** August 16, 2010, 01:55:23 PM »

'Zeroing' a drive can, again, be done with Seagate's DiskWizard, though I tend to use Maxtor's MaxBlast (which, oddly enough, is also available from Seagate, as they now own Maxtor), that is, if you mean by 'random fill' the wiping of all data from the drive.

A-N
techguy.org

nstgc · « **Reply #7 on:** August 16, 2010, 02:30:41 PM »

No, zero-filling is nothing special. If you want to wipe your data to make it hard for someone to read, you need to write random ones and zeros to a drive several times.

arknorth · « **Reply #8 on:** August 16, 2010, 04:56:09 PM »

True - but if you run a zeroing program twice, it pretty much does the same thing.

A-N

nstgc · « **Reply #9 on:** August 16, 2010, 05:33:47 PM »

No it doesn't. All it does is write zeros.

When you write a bit to a magnetic medium (ie HDD) it flips the polarity of the magnetic particles. However, it doesn't flip all of them, just most. It is very easy to read this data, even after it has been written over. I had a program that could find files that had been written over (not just had their headers removed and were unindexed, but overwritten by another file). I know it works because I've used it. The FBI have far more sensivitve equipment. You could spend days writing zeros to a drive and it could still be read.

This isn't just an issue for those who may be holding illegal content on their computer (not that there are any those sorts here on a anime torrent site's message board). Its necessary for security reasons as well. In fact, once I received refurbished hard drives full of financial records of business.

If you want to get rid of data you need to write random 1's and 0's.

Pentium100 · « **Reply #10 on:** August 16, 2010, 06:17:02 PM »

That was true for the old hard drives, you know, 5.25" Full Height, 20MB... Current 1-2TB drives pack the data so densely that is may well be impossible to recover even one "layer" of data.

In any case, no software would be able to recover overwritten sectors simply because even if the hard drive does not flip all of the particles, if flips enough of them so that it can read back the data.

(did you try running your program after zero-filling the drive?)

FBI, CIA and others can have equipment sensitive enough to recover overwritten data from the drive. But if you are worried about them, you should already have the drive encrypted and use multiple passwords (so that when they use rubber hose method for decrypting, you tell them one password that decrypts less important information, that is, if they manage to pull out the encrypted file after you zero the drive).

Quote

In fact, once I received refurbished hard drives full of financial records of business.

They probably didn't even try to erase the data.

fohfoh · « **Reply #11 on:** August 16, 2010, 06:31:41 PM »

GParted is probably my fave if you need to write several partitions on an HDD (Like... 5 or something for a dual boot)

Windows maxes out at like 3? Ubuntu maxes out at like... 4? Idk... it's been a while since I did that.

nstgc · « **Reply #12 on:** August 16, 2010, 07:15:06 PM »

Quote from: Pentium100 on August 16, 2010, 06:17:02 PM

That was true for the old hard drives, you know, 5.25" Full Height, 20MB... Current 1-2TB drives pack the data so densely that is may well be impossible to recover even one "layer" of data.

In any case, no software would be able to recover overwritten sectors simply because even if the hard drive does not flip all of the particles, if flips enough of them so that it can read back the data.

(did you try running your program after zero-filling the drive?)

FBI, CIA and others can have equipment sensitive enough to recover overwritten data from the drive. But if you are worried about them, you should already have the drive encrypted and use multiple passwords (so that when they use rubber hose method for decrypting, you tell them one password that decrypts less important information, that is, if they manage to pull out the encrypted file after you zero the drive).

Quote
In fact, once I received refurbished hard drives full of financial records of business.
They probably didn't even try to erase the data.

Packing data more closely shouldn't have any effect since read write heads must become more sensitive in response to the increased density.

As for zero-filling that drive I was mentioning, no I didn't. Instead I filled it with all sorts of stuff and tried, fruitlessly, to recover the data after two drives in a RAID 5 died. The data should not have been there, yet the drive was almost filled with financial records.

Pentium100 · « **Reply #13 on:** August 16, 2010, 07:24:55 PM »

Quote from: nstgc on August 16, 2010, 07:15:06 PM

Packing data more closely shouldn't have any effect since read write heads must become more sensitive in response to the increased density.

It does. There is a minimum noise level, just like with a cassette tape. Packing the data more closely reduces signal to noise ratio. Old hard drives (and floppy drives), recorded a strong signal and were able to read it back using simple peak detection method. The data was usually read without the use of ECC, when ECC was used it was a sign of a weak sector. Modern drives use EPRML and ECC is almost always used during during normal operation of the drive, that is - the drive can no longer reliably read what it has written "on top" without the use of ECC (which in the past was only used in case of a problem). And you want it to be able to read what it has written before.

Quote

As for zero-filling that drive I was mentioning, no I didn't. Instead I filled it with all sorts of stuff and tried, fruitlessly, to recover the data after two drives in a RAID 5 died. The data should not have been there, yet the drive was almost filled with financial records.

Interesting. Maybe that's why your RAID failed - the drive could no longer record reliably (as evidenced by the previous data on it).

bork · « **Reply #14 on:** August 16, 2010, 07:35:33 PM »

Use sdelete - uses a approved DOD erase algorithm.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897443.aspx

nstgc · « **Reply #15 on:** August 17, 2010, 06:24:37 PM »

Quote from: Pentium100 on August 16, 2010, 07:24:55 PM

Quote from: nstgc on August 16, 2010, 07:15:06 PM
Packing data more closely shouldn't have any effect since read write heads must become more sensitive in response to the increased density.
It does. There is a minimum noise level, just like with a cassette tape. Packing the data more closely reduces signal to noise ratio. Old hard drives (and floppy drives), recorded a strong signal and were able to read it back using simple peak detection method. The data was usually read without the use of ECC, when ECC was used it was a sign of a weak sector. Modern drives use EPRML and ECC is almost always used during during normal operation of the drive, that is - the drive can no longer reliably read what it has written "on top" without the use of ECC (which in the past was only used in case of a problem). And you want it to be able to read what it has written before.

Quote
As for zero-filling that drive I was mentioning, no I didn't. Instead I filled it with all sorts of stuff and tried, fruitlessly, to recover the data after two drives in a RAID 5 died. The data should not have been there, yet the drive was almost filled with financial records.
Interesting. Maybe that's why your RAID failed - the drive could no longer record reliably (as evidenced by the previous data on it).

Still you could recover the ECC data as well.

As for what I typed in regards to my drives, that was incorrect. I had two drives drop out. The raid controller was what failed (two drives don't fail at the exact same time). What destroyed my data was my attempt to recover the data.

Pentium100 · « **Reply #16 on:** August 18, 2010, 05:25:17 AM »

Quote from: nstgc on August 17, 2010, 06:24:37 PM

Still you could recover the ECC data as well.

...(two drives don't fail at the exact same time)...

I was saying that even when reading the data that was written last (as it is designed to do), the hard drive cannot read it back 100% correctly without applying ECC. If you wanted to read the data that was overwritten, the error rate would be too high.

And for RAID5 to fail, the second drive does not have to fail at the exact time as the first one (though it can do that, for example if the power supply fries both drives at once). If just has to fail before you replace the bad drive and rebuild the array.

nstgc · « **Reply #17 on:** August 18, 2010, 12:45:31 PM »

Given that it was my RAID, and I was using it at the time, I'm certain the it was the controller because they did drop out at the same time.

You are making the assumption that FBI would be using the same equipment that we would be using. They have special hardware. They don't have the read error problems that we have.

Pentium100 · « **Reply #18 on:** August 18, 2010, 03:05:31 PM »

Well, I cannot say whether the FBI, CIA or any other similar organization can recover data that was overwritten once (if they can, then it shouldn't matter whether it was overwritten with zeros or random).

I also do not know how expensive is that recovery to them. For example, I read somewhere that if you shred a CD and the resulting pieces were above a certain size (a few microns) then it is possible to put it back together like a jigsaw puzzle with an electron microscope. Though unless the stored information was extremely important (let's say war plans of an enemy country or terrorist attack plans or something like that), it would be too difficult and expensive o do, therefore shredding to smaller pieces is only useful for spies and the like.

Overwriting the data in a hard drive a few times should destroy the data or at least make it to expensive to recover (probably a single pass would make it too expensive).

nstgc · « **Reply #19 on:** August 18, 2010, 03:53:08 PM »

Think about reading a bit on a hard drive as checking for a certain limit. Lets say that if 75% of the particles in that bit are up, then its a 1. Writing a zero will bring that below 25%, however if you write zeros to zeros, the the zero'ed zeros will still be lower than the zeroed ones. As a result there is a contrast. Writing random bits reduces this contrast. Ultimately it would be best to write zeros to ones and level existing zeros alone, but I've never seen such a program.

Writing zeros to a drive may make it difficult for someone without special equipment to read the disk (such as the case of getting a refurbished drive), but it wouldn't effect someone who can read files that have been over written.