--- Aaron Toponce <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Zeroing a drive is just as effective on ATA disks as any other > "secure" data deletion utility. There is no left over charge, > which means data recovery is extremely and highly improbable, > if not near impossible. There is no evidince that I can find, > educational or otherwise, that after an ATA drive has been > zeroed, its data was recovered.
Zeroing the drive is more than likely sufficient for practical purposes. It may not be sufficient to satisfy HIPAA, though: if "industry standards" or "best practices" call for a 7-pass overwrite, then a court or regulatory agency will want to see a 7-pass overwrite, even if a single pass of zeros is sufficient to prevent recovery by any real-world service. It may be worth noting that, while some data sanitizing software refers to the 7-pass method as "DoD 5220.22-M", the actual DoD 5220.22-M document does not specify any particular method for sanitzing data, and the Defense Security Service "Clearing and Santization Matrix" no longer (as of June 2007) accepts overwriting as a method of sanitizing hard drives. Only degaussing or physical destruction are acceptable. But, of course, the data in question isn't defense data, so DoD requirements don't apply :) Naturally the standard "I am not a lawyer" and "This is not legal advice" disclaimers apply. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
