

This would effectively write over the entire drive with ascii code 0x00 characters.Īt this point the chances for recovering any data would be almost hopeless to most data recovering techniques.ĭue to the way hard drives are made it is often possible to determine what was written beneath the most current write operation. Using dd to write over your entire drive with 0s: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda So, in order to make deleted data unrecoverable we must write over it.


If that portion of the disk is not every written over again. When you delete a file or format a hard drive you are basically just telling the computer that it can use this portion of the disk again if it is needed. This is the same procedure that the US Government DoD uses to secure their own drives. I am going to show you a simple technique for erasing the entire drive. For this reason security is a great concern, especially for those who are selling or donating their old computers. In fact is fairly trivial and the process is quite easy to restore them. Wiping a Hard Drive with DD Written by Mark Sanborn: Apr 7, 2008Ī common assumption is that deleting or formatting a hard drive will be enough but in fact the data is still recoverable.
