Ensure The Drive Is Wiped Completely During Data Removal

Posted by Richard Gonzales on May 25th, 2019

When you remove data from your phone before selling it to another person, you must make sure nothing is left behind. Destroying all data contained in the drive will ensure this and the best way to do it is by formatting the drive completely. You can do this manually or by re-installing Windows 8 by going to PC Settings, General, and Remove Everything in that order and finally reinstalling Windows. If you are using Windows 7 you must take reference from your computer manual to find the best way to do it.

More about formatting

Formatting your drive seems to be the best way for Data Removal and will make the job of a thief difficult to retrieve anything after formatting is completed. However, for the clever ones, it is not impossible. If you have hard drives, it will have enough empty spaces where the old data can be sitting pretty. In order to get rid of these hidden data you will need to choose proper tools and software programs such as Nuke that will fill the drive with junk data first and then format it to clean everything effectively.

Deleting sensitive files

In order to delete sensitive info and files you will need to do what the CIA and military does to wipe data. You will have to repeat the formatting process several times. This will leave you with an empty drive. In order to make it work you will have to reinstall the programs and operating system. If you do not want to remove the software and do not any Data Destruction ether as that will render the drive unusable, you can leave the Windows and programs alone and remove your personal data.

Follow logical method

Deleting or formatting commands seem to be the most logical method for Data Removal and is far better from physical destruction of the drive. It will remove unwanted data files but you must at all times make sure that no data resides in the unallocated spaces of the drive. That means simply removing the pointer to the files is not enough. To prevent data recovery using other software tools you must follow proper and more logical sanitizing techniques.

The sanitizing techniques

You will get a lot of info and tips regarding the proper sanitizing techniques and its requirements in the NIST Special Publication 800-88, Guidelines for Media Sanitization. According to it there are three specific actions to take. Clear applies with standard Read and Write commands using a menu option to reset factory state. Purge makes target data recovery impossible to recover while the destroy technique makes recovery infeasible and subsequently makes it unable for the media for storage.