On Friday, March 7, 2008 at 07:06:00 (-0800) Jim Devine writes: >Ruy Lage writes: >> >I've been told that it is virtually impossible to REALLY wipe the data on a >> >hard drive and that with the proper data recovery equipment and software >> you >> >can get back your data. ... > >Bill: >> You've been watching too many CSI television shows. Wiping an entire >> hard drive with software alone is pretty straightforward and reliable. >> Electromagnetic drive wipes are also available for those with more >> money. > >and wouldn't simply writing -- say, copying the entire text of the >Bible? -- all over a disk erase any pre-existing data?
Not reliably. First, wiping an ENTIRE disk is easy, but you have to hit each byte on the disk with multiple patterns of write --- otherwise you risk leaving enough information to recover. Writing the Bible over things just overlays those bytes on top of others and is sort of like writing 555-1212 down, then writing 123-4567 on top --- you can still make out the 555-1212 part, and you need to write many more things on top of it until it is fully obscured. Wiping a single file is MUCH harder, as the operating system or application may have stored copies of it in various places (temporary files, swap space for the OS, etc.). Bill _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
