Delete or Undelete, that's the question

[piccolomondo]

Data dangers dog hard drive sales

Many people are taking risks with data on hard drives and memory cards which they are selling via eBay, say experts.

Letters, resumes, spreadsheets, phone numbers and e-mail addresses were all found on storage hardware bought and analysed by forensics firm Disklabs.

Also recoverable were temporary files from net browsers which contained login details and passwords for websites and even online bank accounts.

The problems arose because sellers were only taking basic steps to delete data.

Key change
In its test of how good users were at destroying data, Disklabs bought 100 hard drives and 50 memory cards - which included SD cards, flash drives, sim cards and memory sticks - from the auction site.

With not a massive amount of work we could go in there and help ourselves to whatever we want.

Simon Steggles, Disklabs

Simon Steggles, director of Disklabs, said the drives and memory cards were probably being sold by people upgrading home PCs or changing their mobile phone.

"Most people made only cursory attempts to erase the data," said Mr Steggles, "and some had not done even that."

During its investigation, Disklabs found large amounts of personal and confidential business data on storage hardware.

Most worryingly, said Mr Steggles, it was possible to extract the temporary files that Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser uses to keep track of what people do when they are using the web.

With a little work, it was possible to reconstruct almost everything that some users did online, and to grab cookies and login details for sites they visited.

"With not a massive amount of work we could go in there and help ourselves to whatever we want," he told the BBC website.

In many cases, only the delete key was used to remove data. However, in PCs and many other digital devices all this does is apply a label that says these sections of storage can be over-written.

On large disk drives this can mean the supposedly deleted data remains intact for a long time.

In such cases, said Mr Steggles, recovering data is very straight-forward for forensic firms and, perhaps, technically-aware thieves.

What users needed to realise, he said, was how hard it was to destroy data. Even formatting hard drives and other memory cards would not irrevocably remove information stored on them.

If users were worried about potentially sensitive data, said Mr Steggles, they should use a professional forensics firm to erase it

"Alternatively," he said "they could smash it to bits."

Story from BBC NEWS

[piccolomondo]

Do you want to delete a sensitive file from your computer, but are concerned that it may leave traces behind on your hard drive?

Create a simple file shredder to permanently and securely delete files from your hard drive [for your Windows desktop]:

A simple batch file will send the file to be deleted to a program called SDelete - which you can download for free from SysInternals.

1. Right click to download the SDelete utility (47 KB).

2. Save the SDelete.exe in your C:\WINDOWS\system32 directory.

3. Add the following text to a new text document:

@echo off
echo .* * *W A R N I N G * * *
echo .
echo .The File(s)/Folders(s) Will Be Permanently Deleted!
echo .
echo .Press CTRL-C to Abort and Terminate Batch Job Or...
echo .
pause
sdelete -p 4 -s %1
pause 

This batch file will send the file to be deleted to the program SDelete.

4. Save the file as "shred.bat",a simple batch file will send the file to be deleted to a program called SDeleteon your desktop right next to your Recycling Bin. Now just drag and drop those sensitive files onto the icon to make them disappear forever!
This will obliterate the sensitive file you want to delete!


Shred.bat isn't your best bet if you're looking to permanently delete data from an entire drive[/url], but it's great for any regular old file deletion.

[piccolomondo]

We already know that formatting your hard drive before you sell it is not enough to permanently erase the data on disk.

Recovering files from a formatted drive is easy when using the right tools, so you have to take extra steps if you want to make sure that the information on your disk gets deleted permanently. There are many solutions that can help you do this, and fortunately, a lot of them are free!

Here are 4 of the most popular ones:

1. Eraser for Windows
Eraser is a free, tiny program. You can also use Eraser to schedule regular clean-ups of the unused space on your disk.

2. Darik's Boot and Nuke

3. Active KillDisk Free Edition

4. PC INSPECTOR e-maxx


All these utilities are self-contained boot floppies that will help you securely erase data from any hard drive. You can fit it onto a floppy -- which helps when you want to create what they call a "Boot Nuke Disk". This allows you to boot from the floppy and erase all the information on a given computer.


Here's how to use them:

1- Create the boot disk via the provided setup file and use it to boot your computer
2- Select the disk to wipe
3- Observe the process while laughing (Optional)


Why should you wait until you sell your drive...
Happy disk wiping everyone!

[Bent_Bladi]

Wow! Thanks piccolomondo for sharing -- I had no idea about some of that stuff . Good thing I'm the "smash it to bits" type of person

[piccolomondo]

Hard drive recovery utilities: when you can't afford to lose that data

If you accidentally delete a file, you can always look in the Recycle Bin to see if it's there. But what if you emptied your Recycle Bin?

Don't PANIC! There may hope yet!

The solution to your problem is to use a file recovery software and these three application are completely free:

1. PC Inspector File recovery

2. Undelete Plus has a nice interface that is easy to use.
Download Undelete Plus

3. Restoration


Don't make yourself any illusion, it's not perfect, and doesn't work all the time (like any other hard drive recovery utility). Sometimes, data cannot be recovered out of a broken hard drive, unless you are ready to take your disk to a specialized recovery shop and pay 1000's of dollars to have your data recovered, no matter how damaged your drive is.


Here are the specific pages concerning hard drive data recovery solutions:

• DTI Data Recovery
• Hard Drive Recovery Group

Here are 2 great articles about hard drive recovery. Read them!

• Beginners Guides: Hard Drive Data Recovery
• Data Recovery Myths

[Bent_Bladi]

Once again--- shukran kteeeeeeer... these are so useful

[piccolomondo]

Delete Eraser:





The Delete Key Just Jumped Off the Keyboard

Creativity at its best. This pencil eraser is shaped like the Delete key on the keyboard. And this rubber can 'delete' your pencil writings from paper. Perfect for geeks.

[via Spluch]