I'm currently securely wiping an old, failing 500 GB hard disk before I replace it. It will take about 18 hours to finish, using CCleaner's simple overwrite (all data are overwritten with zeroes [zero write], 1 pass) secure deletion method. (Might be because of the drive's age and that it is failing as it now has some bad sectors.)
I'm gonna be doing the same to another hard disk soon. Are there software that have secure deletion methods that are faster? Like only writing zeroes to every other bit / HD sector / unit of data? I don't mind if some of the data stay. I just would like the remaining data to be unrecoverable or effectively unreadable, even if recovered.
I've had experience with CCleaner and Eraser. Both of them have a 1 pass zero write secure deletion feature, which are the fastest methods they have, but it is still too slow for old, failing hard drives.
Requirements:
- Uses a method faster than the 1 pass zero write method offered by CCleaner, Eraser and similar software (e.g. a "1/2" pass method - writing zeroes to every other bit / HD sector / unit of data)
- Works on Windows 7
- Can securely wipe an entire hard disk
Preferably:
- Freeware
- Does not need to run at boot (so I can still use my computer while it is wiping a hard disk)
- Can securely delete just the hard disk's free / unused space
cat /dev/random > /dev/sdaX
with/dev/sdaX
being the device of the disk. That would write random bits to the target drive until it's full, and then finally crash (which is fine). Effective wipe that, using random garbage. For paranoia, repeat with/dev/zero
(as the name suggests, write "zeros"), and then again with/dev/urandom
:)