We have a couple of older computers that run win98 and fucking ME and we want to donate them but a friend said we should Wipe them before we do. Apparently it will remove all our personal info from the harddrive, etc. Unfortunately none of us knows how to accomplish this short of a low yield Nuke....Do any of you wire heads know how this gets done? Remember, you have to explain it to me like I'm the banjo player on the river trip...ok?

QUOTE (jimtab @ Jun 25 2005, 09:35 PM)

Do any of you wire heads know how this gets done?

FDISK

just make sure you restart the machine at least once after that ...
Andy

PS: do a google search on FDISK, boot the machine into DOS mode, run FDISK, delete all partitions, reboot, done ...
that'll work for almost all situations you'll ever run into. unless you have trouble with the FBI. they will know how to reconstruct your HD, even after a FDISK.
well, i know too but i'm not going to tell!

From a C prompt, type format C: /u /s and watch it go. However, I could actually recover data from that drive if I really wanted to, there are programs out there that will write xoxoxoxoxoxox over the entire drive thereby making it unrecoverable. Good luck

QUOTE (SirAndy @ Jun 25 2005, 09:43 PM)

QUOTE (jimtab @ Jun 25 2005, 09:35 PM) Do any of you wire heads know how this gets done? FDISK just make sure you restart the machine at least once after that ... Andy PS: do a google search on FDISK, boot the machine into DOS mode, run FDISK, delete all partitions, reboot, done ... that'll work for almost all situations you'll ever run into. unless you have trouble with the FBI. they will know how to reconstruct your HD, even after a FDISK. well, i know too but i'm not going to tell!

That is too easy to recover, however, if you type in fdisk /mbr afterwards, that will format the master boot record making the orginal partition unrecoverable. So that would be a good option also.

QUOTE (SirAndy @ Jun 25 2005, 08:43 PM)

QUOTE (jimtab @ Jun 25 2005, 09:35 PM) Do any of you wire heads know how this gets done? FDISK just make sure you restart the machine at least once after that ... Andy PS: do a google search on FDISK, boot the machine into DOS mode, run FDISK, delete all partitions, reboot, done ... that'll work for almost all situations you'll ever run into. unless you have trouble with the FBI. they will know how to reconstruct your HD, even after a FDISK. well, i know too but i'm not going to tell!

Well, I have had trouble with the FBI but not about computers, so, maybe this will do it....thanks Andy, I'm not crazy paranoid but I'd rather not have passwords and cc#s all over the place.

actually scott the MBR can be easily reconstructed...as well as the FAT tables....I have software at work that does just that.....pretty cool, i want to jack a copy of it.

Ok Jim, the best way is to smash it all with a hammer... good hunting.




M

BCWipe. I've heard the Dept. of Defense uses it. Google it

A BIG Magnet!

I'd just pull the hard drive and smash it.

For permanently wiping data off a computer, I'm a firm supporter of the magnesium method.

Think of it logically... If your goal is complete data elimination, the best way is with a moderate dose of magnesium. No need to nit-pick on data deletion, that's too easy. But giving your opponent a melted blob of silicon, steel and aluminum is a real challenge!

PS: Britt Dog, if you want a HDD that I need some data recovered from I'll ship it your way. I had Fedora Core 3 loaded on there, then windows, then somehow i fucked the MBR up and couldn't get GRUB to work.

At the bank I work for, we use an app called Data Gone. Its just a boot floppy and will write 1s and 0s to the hard drive, over and over. Its painfully slow though, takes about 4 hours to do a 20gb drive.

I would just take the hard drive out and sledge it to death. Hard drives are cheap, but a used one for $10 and put it in there...

Use Fdisk to delete all the partitions.

Reboot.

Create an new partiton with Fdisk that uses the whole drive.

Format the partiton.


Repeat the above 6 times.

Now there is no way to recover the data that was on the drive.

QUOTE (ClayPerrine @ Jun 26 2005, 11:54 AM)

Create an new partiton with Fdisk that uses the whole drive. Format the partiton. Repeat the above 6 times. Now there is no way to recover the data that was on the drive.

acutally, formatting a harddrive *does not* delete the actual data, it just invalidates the individual sectors and flagges them as "free" ...

if you have a disk monitor handy, you can verify this easily ...

for jim's scenario, i think FDISK will be enough ...
Andy