I have an old computer I want to donate but I don’t want some weirdo accessing my folder of spicy memes and all of my other shit but I also don’t want to destroy the drive so the next person can’t use it. What’s the best way to destroy the data without physically destroying the drive? Can I just format and encrypt it or does that still leave shot behind for weirdos to scrape?
Data destruction?
Carson Clark
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Ryan Watson
Wouldn't filling the drive with useless info fill up the sectors previously used by your old data? It's easier to fill up a drive with useless shit than to try to wipe it 100% clean or destroy what's inside. At worst it would just make scraping your data harder. If you care that much about the data that's inside then donate the computer without a drive. It's a donation, you're not supposed to go too much out of your way for a donation.
Ian Jackson
- Boot linux from a stick.
- Use command blkid to find out which device is your hard drive.
- Run cat /dev/urandom > /dev/sdX, where sdX is the device file of your hard drive.
- Wait until "No space left on device" message appears.
- Sell Computer.
- Profit.
Carson Taylor
If you have an SSD don't overwrite it with random data because it totally destroys the wear leveling algorithm on most devices.
There are proper ways to initialize SSDs via hdparm. Google it.
Evan Watson
...
Ian Reyes
DBAN. Google it. Use the free version, it's more than enough to erase your personal data.
Easton Young
DBAN and all of these writing shit with 35 passes is ridiculous and takes FOREVER. Why won't encrypting the drive work?
Isaiah Green
One pass with random numbers is enough.
Encrypting alone will potentially leave traces of previous deleted data on the disk.
Mason Wright
How is that possible if the entire drive is encrypted? Not arguing legitimately asking.
Landon Turner
>don't want some weirdo accessing my folder of spicy memes
Oh, you mean your 1 Tbyte hentai folder? That's normal, nobody will care about that.
Benjamin Foster
Depends on the encryption algorithm. LUKS will not overwrite sectors marked as deleted on initialization. Windows encryption can not be trusted at all.
Just overwrite it once with random numbers and be done with it. It doesn't take taht long really.
If you have a SSD even that won't work though and stuff will be much more complicated. That is why I always recommend to encrypt SSDs by default right from the start.
Liam Sanders
Trigger the drive's built-in "secure erase" function; that's the only way you can make sure that spare tracks, remapped bad sectors, etc are all cleared.
ata.wiki.kernel.org
Afterward, feel free to overwrite with random data. DBAN with one pass for example.
Austin Butler
/thread
Levi Wright
Donate it without the drive
Problem solved
Caleb Brooks
Then I have a useless 7200 rpm drive hanging around collecting dust.
Josiah Russell
Throw it away then retard
Zachary Butler
Every time some dumbass doesn't wipe their shit when they ((((((donate))))) 30 tube tvs and their desktop, I snoop through it and laugh at your ugly ass family pictures
Do both of us a favor and at least zero wipe the thing idiot
Jonathan Jenkins
Lincoln Davis
Hey, this core 2 duo will be used by someone, I think.
Juan Torres
shred /dev/sda
Levi James
LOL! Obviously no one here works in digital forensics. Thinking shreds, zero fills, and encryption means anything. Embarrassing.
David Rodriguez
Just keep the fucking drive you god damned monkey retard.
Carson Hernandez
So much bad information here. It’s embarrassing Jow Forums
Jaxon Wood
So enlighten us then faggot.
Wyatt Jenkins
He's not donating the drive to the NSA, ya doofus.
Carson Harris
This but smash it with a hammer first, when you throw tech in the trash it usually gets shipped to a dump site in a third world country where some weirdo can get his hands on your data.
Ian Cook
Dban or HDD erase will do the trick.
Robert Barnes
Don't smash it open as it might expose you to harmful stuff.
Jeremiah Lopez
It doesn't need to be the NSA, it could just be someone with lots of money to waste.
Christian Lopez
>ITT people think their donated computers are going to professional data recovery facilities
At most people will fire up your old computer and look in the Pictures folder. If they're super autistic maybe they'll use Recuvra.
Solution, open the HDD enclosure exposing it to air and then scratch/smash the platters. There is no way a random donated computer is going to a clean room to fix that.
Nathaniel Wood
>There is no way
>At most
That's just a blatant lie. It may not be probably, but it's certainly not impossible. While you might deem the risk to be acceptable, different people have different thresholds, as well as different evaluations of the consequences related to the risk actually happening.
Gavin Watson
Fair enough, so add DBAN as the first step and then open the enclosure.
Jace Rodriguez
Are there no digital forensic anons on Jow Forums anymore?
Mason Williams
I imagine all of the cheese pizza they find burns them out pretty quickly
Jason Green
pizza gate isn't real. Jow Forums says so.
Easton Garcia
>falling for a phishing campaign
But how? We have our annual Cybersecurity PowerPoint presentation and EVERYONE checks off that they're read and understand it!
Thomas Jackson
Hello Air Force
Jack Garcia
dd bs=4M if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda
Jace Evans
Darik's Boot And Nuke
sourceforge.net
Jaxon Ward
Literally install Gentoo.
Jackson Gray
These are the best answers this far, OP. Do 'em both. Maybe add in the following for shits and giggles:
shred --force --verbose /dev/sda
t
Nathan Cook
How long does DBAN take to run? I know it is sized dependent, but I was hoping to drop this off before I go in for my shift tomorrow. Some of these bazillion pass programs take like 5 days for a 64gb thumb drive.
Charles Johnson
Install Ubuntu and who would think to run recovery software on an installed OS?
Nicholas Bell
Find a friend with a smelter or buy a cheap one, literally nothing will be left of it.
Mason Barnes
Cant you just take the drive out?
Michael Collins
Wipe the drive clean with any mentioned method. Take out the drive, disassemble every last part, and throw each part in a different dumpster. If someone finds all of the parts, assembles them, and can recover the data, I'm sure they deserve it
Aiden Parker
DBAN. Guttman method for 30+ rounds or DoD 5220.22-M at bare minimum.