Recommendations on wiping old hard drive?

[Russ Smith]

User at work had a failing hard disk, under warranty. Dell sent out a new drive we copied over data swapped out the drives, but Dell is requiring us to send in the old drive(or pay for the new one). We do work with the government so we have to wipe the drive. We deleted all the files the easy way and then tried to use D-Ban to completely wipe it. I started it at 5pm Friday, came back Sat at 11am and it said it had 8 hours to go. Came back Sun afternoon, it had run for 28 hours, made 7 passes over the drive, and when it finished it came up with a fail message. I assume this meant it couldn't fully wipe the drive because of hardware errors but my boss still doesn't want to send the drive back to Dell he doesn't trust it's wiped.

I tried to use chkdsk(have the drive in a disk dock) but it doesn't show up under Computer, the computer knows it's there, but doesn't show it as installed so i can't run chkdsk. Disk manager says the drive is there but "not initialized." I found something that recommended I try downloading Seatools from Seagate so I'm running that now, it's supposed to be able to wipe the drive, it too says the drive is there but not initialized.

My other boss said a hammer works well but of course Dell would then charge us.

 

[Linderbee]

very strong magnets.

 

[Russ Smith]

very strong magnets.

Yeah there's a degausser for sale on Amazon for a mere 29K!

 

[BillsCarnage]

If the drive is failing it might be impossible to fully wipe it since when the wiper hits those sectors it'll either fail or take forever trying to wipe them.

Have you tried formatting it and then wiping?

 

[BigRedRage]

I use baby wipes sometimes

 

[JS22]

You may need to just count it as a loss and move on. I wouldn't trust DBAN on a failing hard drive. Especially when it has government related data.

Physically destroy it and get a new drive.

 

[coyoteshockeyfan]

Yeah, if we're talking about a run of the mill hard drive, it probably costs more to fix and properly wipe the drive when you take into account the amount of employee time it will take. Isn't there any way to convince Dell of another solution, I'm sure they've dealt with customers unwilling to hand back drives due to government data before.

 

[Russ Smith]

If the drive is failing it might be impossible to fully wipe it since when the wiper hits those sectors it'll either fail or take forever trying to wipe them.

Have you tried formatting it and then wiping?

Yeah it actually wouldn't format. I had it in a disk dock using disk manager and it would say formatting but just hang for well over an hour so we abandoned that.

We ended up finding a company near by that would wipe it for us using a degaussing machine. So I wound up taking 3 drives(and have 2 more we'll do soon). They degaussed the Dell one while I waited and gave it back, powers up and just clicks so definitely done. The other 2 they said they could wipe and resell for parts but after they tried they determined they couldn't wipe them either so they degaussed them and are just turning them into E Waste.

Good deal 5 bucks a drive, they give us a Certificate of destruction and it gets properly disposed of.

I feel a lot better in that the lady who worked there told me the methods I'd tried, formatting, D Ban and Seagate Seatools for Windows, are all methods they use themselves. They also use something else I think she said Acronis which is not a free tool but she said I was definitely not doing anything wrong the drives just couldn't be wiped using software due to mechanical problems.

 

[UncleChris]

I've had very good luck with Clean Disk Security

http://www.theabsolute.net/sware/clndisk.html

 

[Russ Smith]

I've had very good luck with Clean Disk Security

http://www.theabsolute.net/sware/clndisk.html

Thanks I'll take a look although it looks like we're leaning towards using Degaussing as our standard. Only issue is Dell might object if we get more replacement drives from them and always send back a non functional one because it's been degaussed.

But definitely the most secure the guys I talked to said most of the companies they deal with are now required to have a 3rd party destroy the drive and certify it to comply with government requirements so it's a pretty good standard to use.

 

[BillsCarnage]

They also use something else I think she said Acronis which is not a free tool but she said I was definitely not doing anything wrong the drives just couldn't be wiped using software due to mechanical problems.

I use Acronis at home. It has various tools available in the app and there are various levels for wiping a drive.

But definitely the most secure the guys I talked to said most of the companies they deal with are now required to have a 3rd party destroy the drive and certify it to comply with government requirements so it's a pretty good standard to use.

If you ever go to one of the Phoenix Recycles days Westech brings their drive muncher (as I call it).. Actually a drive shredder and you can watch your drive be shredded... Pretty cool to watch.