Hdd Dump Programs

[Wetwork]

Hey Happy Hackers

I am looking for a HDD Core Dump/ Wipe program that can wipe out a hard drive with a few keystroke combos. I know that there are some HDD wiping programs out there such as BCwipe that comply with DoD requirements for drive wiping and the like but they take far far far too long. I am looking for a program that can scrub a drive as fast as possible like in under 5 min from within the operating system effectively scrubbing the drive

Im looking for something that can wipe out the MFT and sectors as fast as possible with a 3 or 4 keystroke combo that will work for linux and/or windows

Any thoughts?

Edited March 20, 2010 by Wetwork

[H@L0_F00]

Operating systems don't like formatting themselves

[Wetwork]

Operating systems don't like formatting themselves

Yes, this is true but even under linux there is no way to bypass that little wrinkle and MTF wipe the drive?

The long and short of it is that i need a software electromagnet... Has anyone come up with the idea of interfacing a electromagnet on a hard drive for an instant wipe?

[MRGRIM]

A USB Defibrator hack/mod would be an interesting segment I say.

[Darkmist!]

i would say put Dban in the system CD tray and set the computer to boot from the CD. see if there is a way to include a script that runs autonuke so if you sense you are in danger then you just need to restart the system and walk away.

[VaKo]

Other than something which kills the running OS and boots a scripted linux install running from flash, which then dd's the drive with /dev/random, I can't see how you can get an OS to do something like this. But, I have personally seen both Windows and FreeBSD continue to run despite the hard drive being physically removed from the system, so I'm not going to say this is impossible.

You might want to investigate a way of corrupting the HDD's firmware instead, which will render the device unusable without a transplant or better tech than we can get hold of. The drive has a physical speed limit imposed on it, and overwriting the disk will take longer than your looking for, so by just rendering the device inoperable and not even trying wiping the data you achieve more or less the same effect, faster, with the bonus of making the recovery operation several orders of magnitude harder.

[H@L0_F00]

A DIY platter transfer wouldn't be too far out of reach for somebody that this kind of thing would be created to defend against, though.

[VaKo]

True, but they are never as easy as they appear to be. You could override some fail-safes and see if you can force mechanical damage to the platters, but this is much harder to do.

Thinking about this, mechanical damage is the only real way to go. I know the US Navy take hammers to there kit in the event they have to ditch a spy plane. But this depends on what your trying to do, and what your trying to defend against. If this is your desktop PC, and your in a situation where RIAA shock troopers just pulled up with a warrant for MP3's, then something like a thermate with an electronic ignition linked to a serial interface would work well. 3.5" HDD's are a bastard to take a hammer to, especially on carpet, so thermate would be your only quick method. Laptop HDD's are easier to break as you can shatter the platter in one blow, so if your forced to ditch your laptop then you can just hurl the disk into the ground and getting the data back is now a job for someone with an electron microscope and a spare couple of months.

But if you want to work on a machine, and then nuke the disk without either causing a fire, making a noise or otherwise drawing attention to yourself your back to software. Which really leaves you with the option of either dding crap over the HDD (takes a long time) or nuking the disk firmware (which would require something that understands all drive firmware from the top 5 manufactures, and that can access it from within a running OS). I think windows just flat out refuses to format itself and rm -rf / usually falls over when it deletes rm (unless you made a RAM disk and ran it from there).

My advice is to either work entirely from RAM, invest in a portable bulk eraser, carry a hammer or learn how to make thermate (which isn't the same as thermite) if your after a military proof method. If you just want to stop an average hacker with limited funds, frak the firmware.

[twist]

ATA Commands ? ^_^

https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase

From what i understand if a ATA command is issued the drive will not do anything until that command is finished, so even if you pull the drive and slap it into another pc, it will still erase.

Edited March 24, 2010 by twist

[VaKo]

Interesting, I'd not heard of that before. Anyone actually used it?

[iisjman07]

I've used HDDErase before (http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml) which is from the Center for Magnetic Recording Research, which will issue the ATA command to destroy the drive. It also has an advantage over DBAN which is that it can wipe reallocated sectors. Not sure about this statement

From what i understand if a ATA command is issued the drive will not do anything until that command is finished, so even if you pull the drive and slap it into another pc, it will still erase.

. I stopped it on a drive part way through (hard reboot) and the drive was completely fu**ed Edited March 25, 2010 by iisjman07

[Wetwork]

Thanks one and all!

The ATA command might be the best way to go but i still think that there might be a way to degauss the HDD by interfacing a electromagnet to a HDD inside the case to go for the instant nuke.

Granted with whole disk encryption and a good hammer no one is going to access the drive but depending on the vigilance of the law enforcement monkey who comes a knocking he might just have to go through the whole electron microscope process but will have a bitch of a time getting through the whole disk encryption

Doing a little homework of my own i ran across this

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/4228...ive_Holder.html

Im sure that the components can be busted out of the case and then interfaced with the HDD inside the box that can be activated via a toggle switch on the front of the case and nuke the whole thing with the flip of a switch. It will prob wipe out the memory and the cpu at the same time making the box a brick. This might be a consideration as well with the advent of cold boot attacks that can get whole drive encryption hashes and keys from the ram

I will see if i can get one of these on fleebay and see if its a viable possiblility

will keep everyone updated

Edited March 25, 2010 by Wetwork

[twist]

I've used HDDErase before (http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml) which is from the Center for Magnetic Recording Research, which will issue the ATA command to destroy the drive. It also has an advantage over DBAN which is that it can wipe reallocated sectors. Not sure about this statement . I stopped it on a drive part way through (hard reboot) and the drive was completely fu**ed

I've never actually used any ATA commands for erasing data before, so I was going by something that someone else had told me, Farther research is needed. From what i know the ATA commands are handled by hardware, so it would possibly be the fastest method. <3

[iisjman07]

From what i know the ATA commands are handled by hardware, so it would possibly be the fastest method.

That's true, compared to DBAN or other disk wiping methods it's incredibly fast (although it's not exactly instantanious). This video should explain about disk wiping: http://www.youtube.com/SuperFlyFlippingA#p/u/38/fst8IZup44c

Full disk encryption will stop most law enforcement agencies, but I wonder how long it will take this computer from the NSA:

Talking about Brute Forcing passwords:

It would take a home computer 22 thousand years, but the Thinking Machine can do it in just a few seconds

Edited March 25, 2010 by iisjman07

[twist]

Thanks for the links :)

[Burning Aces]

look at "shred" off linux, or testdisk

also most of the topic:TLDR

could just take out the hdd and crush/scratch(if you can open the casing) the shit out of it