Best way Wipe Disk (when RMAing HDD)?

[jmone]

What is the best way of wiping the HDD using HDS? I'm currently doing a Reinitalise Disk Surface which I'm sure does a good job while I see the HDD support "Security Erase" I'm not sure if HDS supports this or even it there is a benefit or difference over Reinitalise Disk Suraface (such a speed as it is soooo slow).
THanks
Nathan

[hdsentinel]

Personally I completely agree: I can confirm that Disk -> Surface Test -> Reinitalise Disk Surface is the best method. It complies with industry and government standard data destruction methods, preventing any kind of data recovery, even performed by special data recovery companies.

Yes, I know it is slow because of the different ovewrite passes.
If you prefer a more quick but safe solution, please use Disk -> Surface Test -> Write test and overwrite the surface with random data (on the "Configuration" page just before starting the test you can specify "write pattern", see image). This should be also fine and would make the data recovery theoretically impossible.

[jmone]

Thanks - but it seems no quicker to me (still running at under 10 MB/s) - I guess that is the issue trying to write to all sectors on a 2TB drive = 3 Days!

[hdsentinel]

This is interesting.
The simple WRITE test should work at "full" speed. If it is an USB 2.0 drive, it should be approx. 30 MByte/sec, on SATA/eSATA line it should be 3-4 times faster.
If slower, it is possible that a data communication error occurs which limit the performance of drive.

[jmone]

Thanks - I moved the HDD back to the ICH controller from the JMicron but same things - under 10MB/s for the swquential write test (also tried random when on the JMicron). It could easily be the drive is failing (down to 5% health) or else I've got a setting incorrect!

[hdsentinel]

Oh, I see, on a drive which is almost dead we can't really expect high write speed

[timss]

Hi....
You can easily delete all the data from your computer hard drive. There is nothing to think about it. There is a software which can wipe data easily. Wipe disk tool should be used to shred the data from hard drive in order to wipe disk free space.To know more about the software use this link...
http://www.wipedisk.net/free-space.html
Also you can download the demo version of software here....
http://www.wipedisk.net/download/wipedisk-shredder.exe

[hdsentinel]

Performing manual delete and wipe the free space is a just waste of time and also does not really delete some areas of the hard disk (eg. administrative areas and areas outside partitions).

So the best way to is still Hard Disk Sentinel: the Disk -> Surface test -> Reinitialise disk surface (for industry and government standard wipe) or if you prefer a quicker method, Disk -> Surface test -> Write test to overwrite the complete hard disk.

[Ernst@at]

On modern drives a one-pass-overwrite is enougth to be secure.
Why it's not possible to submit a "Data Security Erase" Command to the Drive by HDS?
This would work at full rotational speed without data transfer and so it would be of same speed regardless USB/(e)SATA controller limitations

[hdsentinel]

I agree that should be sufficient - just sometimes not possible to use and also some laws / organizations may require higher level of erase.

The hard disk controller driver would block that command, just like as it blocks other commands (for example using APM / acoustic management settings from the Disk menu).
That would work on USB - but then the USB adapter would soon drop the hard disk by a timeout condition because it does not answer to any commands during the execution of the secure erase.

[Ernst@at]

So I wonder why some of the vendor tools (Seatools, WD-DLGD) are able to do the "Data Secure Erase" even in the Windows version, internal connected and also with their external disk products. As far as I know it's also possible to get information about the current processing LBA to show a procentual progress bar

[hdsentinel]

Under Windows they perform simply overwrite

[midgylittle]

thanks. this is really helpful.