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What is the best and fastest wipe drive (zero fill) utility that can be burned to a CD?

5 Answers 5

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Darik's Boot And Nuke is the one I use and highly recommend.

EBAN (Enterprise Boot and Nuke) is the commercially supported edition for those that require it.

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Not a software solution,.. but I'm kinda partial to (although have never tried :{ ) energetic compounds in various forms: fire, explosives, thermite, corrosives and firearms.

Or for the more liability adverse, a set of screwdrivers (and an intern) will get you (or him/her) some cool round mirrors and a pair of really strong magnets.

If you heat the HDD patters to 770 °C (1418 °F) they will lose all magnetic properties. (A charcoal grill might work for that.) Data errors start cropping up at lower temperatures so sticking it in your oven might also work.


Found a link to someone actually doing some of these!


FWIW: Unless you are worried about major players (NSA, FBI, CIA, other countries equivalents or mega-corp industrial espionage) programs that overwrite the data once are enough as after that their is no way to recover the data without hardware modifications and special equipment. If you need more security than that, either you are doing something you shouldn't be (e.g. criminal) or you are a big enough player to afford going with one of the "energetic compounds" type solutions.

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    The magnets that you'll get out of the hard drive by taking it apart are amazingly strong, and absolutely worth everyone discovering at least once. They are fragile though so be careful with them and be sure not to get your skin caught between the two of them as it will be a good pinch :-) May 18, 2009 at 19:06
  • If you leave them on their frame, I've never found them being brittle to be a problem. And ditto on the Ouch factor!
    – BCS
    May 18, 2009 at 20:22
  • Another cool source for big magnets is the magnetron out of a microwave oven that has 2 big rings magnets in it.
    – BCS
    May 18, 2009 at 20:24
  • LOL! A good strong electromagnet will also do the trick. Did some serious damage do a drive once with one in our lab :)
    – squillman
    May 18, 2009 at 20:52
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Here is a list of options for Windows, Mac and Unix

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on a unix machine you can use DD on OSX you can use the disk utility

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Here's one I like: http://www.cbltech.ca/data-shredder.html

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