Overwriting Hard Drive Data: The Great Wiping Controversy (2008) [pdf]

Re:Overwriting Hard Drive Data: The Great Wiping Controversy... by throw0101a on Sunday August 29, 2021 @07:18PM (#28351388)

Per NIST Special Publication 800-88 Rev. 1 (p. 7):

> For storage devices containing magnetic media, a single overwrite pass with a fixed pattern such as binary zeros typically hinders recovery of data even if state of the art laboratory techniques are applied to attempt to retrieve the data.

* https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-88/rev-1/fi...

If you're really paranoid use degaussing or physical destruction. If you can, use the SATA/SCSI "secure erase" command. Which definitely needs to be done for non-magnetic media (e.g., SSDs).

I'm sure there are some places where regulations dictate certain actions.

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Re:Overwriting Hard Drive Data: The Great Wiping Controversy... by bsder on Sunday August 29, 2021 @08:13PM (#28351699)

Didn't there used to be a prize offered for anyone who could reconstruct a disk that had been zeroed?

I don't think anyone ever won it.

Yes, it seems that it is theoretically possible to recover a drive that has been zeroed, but it seems that, practically, no one will bother.

Of course, SSDs are a complete other kettle of fish.

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