Question for Computer experts

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Mickstr68

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I have a wager with two friends going on and need an answer- if you're not a computer expert please don't reply- I need a positive answer.

If you have a file that you have on your computer that you want to permanently delete so that it can never be retrieved then which one is correct:

Friend 1 says that if you just delete the file, empty your trash and then do a defrag of your computer then the file is not retrievable even by an expert.

Friend 2 says that if you delete the file, empty your trash and then do a reformat of your hard drive that the file is not retievable

I say the only way that this file can never be retrieved is when you completely replace your hard drive.

Who's correct- or are there a couple of us that are correct?
 
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bsucards

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Friend 2 is closer than friend 1 by far.

However to really make sure no file is able to be recovered, you need to run a DoD (Department of Defense) approved wipe.

Here is some quick info:
Wipe Info uses two methods for cleaning data: a fast wipe, which is the default, and a government wipe," says Merritt. "In a fast wipe, the program writes random hexadecimal values over the data, the numbers 0 to 9 and letters A to F. Government wipe does essentially the same thing, but several times, up to 100, actually. First the data is overwritten with 0s, then with Fs, then with random values as many times as you want."

There are numerous protocols for safe data deletion, and perhaps the most prominent in the United States is the Department of Defense Document 5220-22-M, National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual which specifies three passes. The U.S. government recognizes three levels of wiping:



I work at a fortune 500 pharmaceutical company and we actually have some one that has a machine that shreds the drives. We used to just drill holes in the hard drives, but that was a pain, and had to replaced drill bits a bunch.


Next up is we are going to use a full disk encryption of the laptops so even if one was stolen/lost, you can't recover anything from it.

So in the end really neither one of them is wipe, you really need to do a DoD wipe, using the two methods you mention above, I could recover files in about 10 min
 
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bsucards

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Mickstr68 said:
Chop it up, burn it, or otherwise dispose of it so that it couldn't be used.
Click to expand...

yeah that more than likely will do it, as long as you destroy the platters where the data is.

Otherwise you could download a free DoD disk like dban and let it run on the pc for a day and then donate the machine/drive to goodwill
 
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Glferboy21

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You do not need to destory the hard drive... if you just reimage the drive all of the files will be lost, and a new operating software will have to be put in
 
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