use CC Cleaner to wipe outboard drive?

[Paresh]

can I do this? It's installed on my computer but I need to wipe an outboard drive. Thanks!

[mta]

wipe as in erase?

if so, re-format the drive would be the faster option.

 

but as to CC, if your unit shows up in Tools, Drive Wiper, Drives, then you could either wipe Free Space Only or Entire Drive, then decide how many wipes.

[Paresh]

Thanks - I didn't know if CC is any more thorough than just reformatting. Is reformatting enough to make it safe to give away??

[Paresh]

update - it does show up in tools & I see I can overwrite several times

[mta]

a non-quick format does a low-level wipe of the drive, i'm not sure how that compares to a multi-pass wipe using CC.

 

I would classify either method as being good enough to give the drive away because if the new owner is even remotely interested in seeing what you had on it, it would be a laborious, slow, hands-on experience. surely he'd be thinking life is too short.

 

from what I know, no matter how a drive is 'erased', with the right time, software and motivation, data can always be retrieved.

now... as to the state of that data, that's the 64 million dollar question.

 

I have worked in a gov dept where they removed a hard drive platter from an old Winchester mainframe drive that suffered a head crash, used an angled grinder on the drive surface, then smashed the platter with the hammer, then put the pieces back together and, by hand, rotated the platter over a read head and were able to 'read' data.

it was a mess, only a few characters were retrieved, but it was a exercise to prove to the higher powers that they also needed a furnace to smelt the platter down to slag.

[Alan_B]

I do not know if CCleaner can deal with 4 TB capacity drives, or anything but FAT32 or NTFS.

Although unlikely, perhaps there may be something special about your system that could prevent success.

 

Is your Outboard drive formatted FAT32 or NTFS, or something else that Linux uses.

How is it connected USB2 / USB3 / eSATA etc.

What size is it.

 

It may be worth testing your outboard drive with Recuva.

Simply delete a few files and test whether Recuva can detect and recover them.

This will prove some compatibility between your system and the drive.

Then you can decide whether to format or Overwrite/Erase etc.

After which you can use Recuva to observe what secrets can be discovered by the person who receives your drive,

and if it finds anything you can reconsider and try again.

 

 

I have worked in a gov dept where they removed a hard drive platter from an old Winchester mainframe drive that suffered a head crash,

It is quite easy to recover files that had been Single Pass OverWritten/Wiped / Erased from ancient Winchester drives,

and for that reason Guttman devised many different multi-pass procedures.

 

More recent drives in this century are far more difficult for file recovery, hence multi-pass is less important,

but CCleaner provides a Guttman subset of 1, 3, 7, and 35 pass for those who fear loss of privacy.

 

A quick format removes no data and Recuva would have a very high success rate at recovery.

 

A Full Format will probably achieve the equivalent of a single pass overwrite.

[Augeas]

From Vista onwards a default format will write zeroes to the whole disk (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941961).

 

Or you could use CCleaner Drive Wiper to run a full disk erase. This will (quick?) format the disk and then run a wipe free space. One pass is sufficient, search this forum for why.

 

I would guess that the M/S format is faster.

 

PS The M/S article mentions disks then volumes. I assume it means what are in my world called partitions.

[Alan_B]

I always use M/S/ articles as an ultimate last resort,

they only reveal to me my ignorance and leave me more confused than when I started.

 

I think one or more partitions can occupy a single physical drive,

and each partition is allocated exclusive use of contiguous sectors which are reserved for it.

 

Windows Disk Management under Windows 7 Ultimate + SP1,

will allow me to select unallocated space on a physical drive and shows the options

New Simple Volume

New Spanned Volume

New Striped Volume

New Mirrored Volume

New RAID-5 Volume

Properties

Help

 

Only the 3 emphasised options are usable on my system.

 

I think a Simple Volume is identical to a partition, and

a partition is identical to a Simple Volume.

 

The 4 greyed out things do something special,

and I think include the ability for an individual volume to span multiple physical drives for monstrously large capacity.

My very first P.C. had a single 20 MB HDD and the ability for a daily BSOD.

So far as I am concerned a Simple Volume is more than large enough for Windows to fumble with and drop.

[Paresh]

Hi - Thanks for all the replies. It's an old drive, only about 160 gig, uSB 2.0, so I think it should work fine.

[Andavari]

...shows the options

New Simple Volume

 

Sounds almost like something to adjust the sound level. How about a New Confusing Volume.

 

It would be far simpler if they'd just call it a partition like practically everyone else does, but perhaps that's asking too much and they have their own jargon. They've called it "volume" for ages though.

[Guest Keatah]

For any modern-day HDD, including the OP's 160GB jobber, a 1x or 2x pass is sufficient. Either that, or the built-in Secure Erase feature. Doing the Gutmann 35x pass is ridiculous today.

 

If you want to be 100% secure against gov't agencies with Holographic EFM & STM SpinStands then disassemble and heat the platters past their materials' curie point.

 

To make your head spin faster than the disk, read these!

 

http://computer-forensics.sans.org/blog/2009/01/28/spin-stand-microscopy-of-hard-disk-data/

http://computer-forensics.sans.org/blog/2009/01/15/overwriting-hard-drive-data/

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=spinstand&psj=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44342787,d.aWM&biw=1024&bih=623&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=HZ1SUdyOMoG3ygH23oCIAg

http://www.nber.org/sys-admin/overwritten-data-guttman.html

http://grot.com/wordpress/?p=154

http://www.lps.umd.edu/Magnetics/MagneticsSpinstandImaging1.html