Deleting Files Permanently

[Infiltrator]

Hi Community,

I am about to send away my netbook for repair and would like to send it away as clean as possible.

What tool will be the best for making files unrecoverable?

I have found a couple of tools on the internet, but want to know from the community you favorite ones.

Thank you very much

[Mr-Protocol]

DBAN.

http://www.dban.org/

You only need technically 1 overwrite of the entire disk. Anything more is hardware thrashing. The hardware needed to recover an overwritten file is not worth it unless you are US Government priority one.

Edited October 3, 2010 by Mr-Protocol

[Infiltrator]

DBAN.

http://www.dban.org/

You only need technically 1 overwrite of the entire disk. Anything more is hardware thrashing. The hardware needed to recover an overwritten file is not worth it unless you are US Government priority one.

Way a second, is this tool going to wipe my hard drive entirely or will it let specify what files I want to delete?

Thank you.

[Mr-Protocol]

Entire drive.

[Infiltrator]

Entire drive.

Do you know of any other tool, that can safely delete files, instead of trashing the HDD. I am just trying to delete the files, not the operating system files. I still want the operating system on the HDD.

Thank you again.

Edited October 3, 2010 by Infiltrator

[Mr-Protocol]

I would just reinstall the OS. That way all temp files, application settings files, registry entries, slack space, everything would be overwritten. Then reinstall the OS. (Assuming the OS is Windows)

[Infiltrator]

No problems will do that.

Thanks again, Mr-Protocol.

[Mr-Protocol]

Before re-installing the OS, make sure you run DBAN on 1 pass. That will overwrite the whole drive. Then install OS.

Installing OS before DBAN is like wiping before you poop...

[BattZ]

For just files and not the whole drive, I use file shredder

http://download.cnet.com/File-Shredder/300...4-10662831.html

works well for me.

Installing OS before DBAN is like wiping before you poop...

Well put

Edited October 3, 2010 by BattZ

[Infiltrator]

I knew there was a particular tool out there, for deleting files "File Shredder", I just couldn't remember what it was called.

Thanks Battz

[BattZ]

No problem, glad I could help.

[Sparda]

Bare in mind that the operating system and other applications may retain information about the files you are trying to delete. The only way to ensure no information leakage is to completely destroy all data on the hard disk.

[antonymous]

While I agree with Sparda in terms of general infosec, I'll also point out that if you know exactly which files you want deleted, another good option is to delete your files from the OS, then run WinHex's options to wipe free space, slack space, and excess records from the MFT.

[Infiltrator]

While I agree with Sparda in terms of general infosec, I'll also point out that if you know exactly which files you want deleted, another good option is to delete your files from the OS, then run WinHex's options to wipe free space, slack space, and excess records from the MFT.

Yeah, I kinda of knew that there was no way to safely remove files without leaving any traces behind and the only effective method to completely get rid of any traces would be, using Dban to wipe off the HDD.

[okiwan]

large rare earth magnet to the hard drive. 5 pound should do it. might want to remove it away from the motherboard just for safety reasons. might fry every thing.

[Infiltrator]

large rare earth magnet to the hard drive. 5 pound should do it. might want to remove it away from the motherboard just for safety reasons. might fry every thing.

Or if you really that paranoid, you could drop it in Larva or Acid bucket. Evidence destroyed, no traces left behind.

[okiwan]

Or if you really that paranoid, you could drop it in Larva or Acid bucket. Evidence destroyed, no traces left behind.

a bucket of baby flies? ya i guess i can see not wanting to touch the HD if its in that. acid? now that all depends on what kind of acid your talking about. if its LCD it might be tempting.

Edited October 16, 2010 by okiwan

[Infiltrator]

a bucket of baby flies? ya i guess i can see not wanting to touch the HD if its in that. acid? now that all depends on what kind of acid your talking about. if its LCD it might be tempting.

I am talking about that Chemical Acid that destroys/melt everything that comes in contact with it.

Edited October 16, 2010 by Infiltrator

[okiwan]

oh. that. ya i wouldnt wanna touch that. i used to have some. it was fun to melt bolts an screws an stuff. it surprisingly takes a long time to dissolve some thing. not like the movies at all.

[Infiltrator]

oh. that. ya i wouldnt wanna touch that. i used to have some. it was fun to melt bolts an screws an stuff. it surprisingly takes a long time to dissolve some thing. not like the movies at all.

Hollywood they use too much effects to make things look realistic, but most of the time they aren't.

[pizzaguy]

I personally like Eraser. Ot supports multipass overwriting of files, folders and whole drives. It's pretty nice.

Edited October 21, 2010 by pizzaguy

[Infiltrator]

I personally like Eraser. Ot supports multipass overwriting of files, folders and whole drives. It's pretty nice.

I found that Ccleaner does somewhat a good job of not leaving traces behind, but in a forensics website I read Eraser should be used after Ccleaner has been ran, just to stay on the safe side.

[Guest Deleted_Account]

I found that Ccleaner does somewhat a good job of not leaving traces behind, but in a forensics website I read Eraser should be used after Ccleaner has been ran, just to stay on the safe side.

I agree but it is kind of paranoid. On windows I usually run CCleaner with a minimum of NSA-7 Pass and then use Comodo's PC Cleaner to grab what was missed. Does a fairly good job and about once a month I would wipe free space with eraser set to DOD 3-Pass or whatever Plus my HDD is encrypted so not that big of a deal for me.

On linux I use bleach bit and have a shell script run on logon that touch's my download folder to a random date and than SRM's the files with the Gutmann wipe.

[Samilabing]

If you want to remove/ delete this file from your hard drive so quickly download “Duplicate Files Delete” . It may be able to be removed/ delete this file from your hard drive.

[Jason Cooper]

Is it a hard disk or an SSD? Why do I ask, well securely erasing files from each is different.

Hard Disks you have already been given a lot of good advice, but SSDs on the other hand don't necessarily follow the same rules. They have what is referred to as wear levelling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_leveling). Long story short, you think you have wiped out the entire disk with something like DBAN but you haven't (some contents may be left to reappear later when a memory cell is reused).

Best advice here is to use a disk erase tool that use the ATA Securiy Erase Unit command. This will only work on ATA disks (but these days that is all you will most likely encounter). It works on SSDs as the firmware will erase the all the memory locations on the device in one go (fast!), it will work on hard disks with just two passes and it even physically offsets the heads on both passes to overwrite the edges of the tracks (Just in-case your attacker has an electron microscope to view the platters with).