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  • Use an Ubuntu Live CD to Securely Wipe Your PC’s Hard Drive

    - by Trevor Bekolay
    Deleting files or quickly formatting a drive isn’t enough for sensitive personal information. We’ll show you how to get rid of it for good using a Ubuntu Live CD. When you delete a file in Windows, Ubuntu, or any other operating system, it doesn’t actually destroy the data stored on your hard drive, it just marks that data as “deleted.” If you overwrite it later, then that data is generally unrecoverable, but if the operating system don’t happen to overwrite it, then your data is still stored on your hard drive, recoverable by anyone who has the right software. By securely delete files or entire hard drives, your data will be gone for good. Note: Modern hard drives are extremely sophisticated, as are the experts who recover data for a living. There is no guarantee that the methods covered in this article will make your data completely unrecoverable; however, they will make your data unrecoverable to the majority of recovery methods, and all methods that are readily available to the general public. Shred individual files Most of the data stored on your hard drive is harmless, and doesn’t reveal anything about you. If there are just a few files that you know you don’t want someone else to see, then the easiest way to get rid of them is a built-in Linux utility called shred. Open a terminal window by clicking on Applications at the top-left of the screen, then expanding the Accessories menu and clicking on Terminal. Navigate to the file that you want to delete using cd to change directories and ls to list the files and folders in the current directory. As an example, we’ve got a file called BankInfo.txt on a Windows NTFS-formatted hard drive. We want to delete it securely, so we’ll call shred by entering the following in the terminal window: shred <file> which is, in our example: shred BankInfo.txt Notice that our BankInfo.txt file still exists, even though we’ve shredded it. A quick look at the contents of BankInfo.txt make it obvious that the file has indeed been securely overwritten. We can use some command-line arguments to make shred delete the file from the hard drive as well. We can also be extra-careful about the shredding process by upping the number of times shred overwrites the original file. To do this, in the terminal, type in: shred –remove –iterations=<num> <file> By default, shred overwrites the file 25 times. We’ll double this, giving us the following command: shred –remove –iterations=50 BankInfo.txt BankInfo.txt has now been securely wiped on the physical disk, and also no longer shows up in the directory listing. Repeat this process for any sensitive files on your hard drive! Wipe entire hard drives If you’re disposing of an old hard drive, or giving it to someone else, then you might instead want to wipe your entire hard drive. shred can be invoked on hard drives, but on modern file systems, the shred process may be reversible. We’ll use the program wipe to securely delete all of the data on a hard drive. Unlike shred, wipe is not included in Ubuntu by default, so we have to install it. Open up the Synaptic Package Manager by clicking on System in the top-left corner of the screen, then expanding the Administration folder and clicking on Synaptic Package Manager. wipe is part of the Universe repository, which is not enabled by default. We’ll enable it by clicking on Settings > Repositories in the Synaptic Package Manager window. Check the checkbox next to “Community-maintained Open Source software (universe)”. Click Close. You’ll need to reload Synaptic’s package list. Click on the Reload button in the main Synaptic Package Manager window. Once the package list has been reloaded, the text over the search field will change to “Rebuilding search index”. Wait until it reads “Quick search,” and then type “wipe” into the search field. The wipe package should come up, along with some other packages that perform similar functions. Click on the checkbox to the left of the label “wipe” and select “Mark for Installation”. Click on the Apply button to start the installation process. Click the Apply button on the Summary window that pops up. Once the installation is done, click the Close button and close the Synaptic Package Manager window. Open a terminal window by clicking on Applications in the top-left of the screen, then Accessories > Terminal. You need to figure our the correct hard drive to wipe. If you wipe the wrong hard drive, that data will not be recoverable, so exercise caution! In the terminal window, type in: sudo fdisk -l A list of your hard drives will show up. A few factors will help you identify the right hard drive. One is the file system, found in the System column of  the list – Windows hard drives are usually formatted as NTFS (which shows up as HPFS/NTFS). Another good identifier is the size of the hard drive, which appears after its identifier (highlighted in the following screenshot). In our case, the hard drive we want to wipe is only around 1 GB large, and is formatted as NTFS. We make a note of the label found under the the Device column heading. If you have multiple partitions on this hard drive, then there will be more than one device in this list. The wipe developers recommend wiping each partition separately. To start the wiping process, type the following into the terminal: sudo wipe <device label> In our case, this is: sudo wipe /dev/sda1 Again, exercise caution – this is the point of no return! Your hard drive will be completely wiped. It may take some time to complete, depending on the size of the drive you’re wiping. Conclusion If you have sensitive information on your hard drive – and chances are you probably do – then it’s a good idea to securely delete sensitive files before you give away or dispose of your hard drive. The most secure way to delete your data is with a few swings of a hammer, but shred and wipe from a Ubuntu Live CD is a good alternative! Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Reset Your Ubuntu Password Easily from the Live CDScan a Windows PC for Viruses from a Ubuntu Live CDRecover Deleted Files on an NTFS Hard Drive from a Ubuntu Live CDCreate a Bootable Ubuntu 9.10 USB Flash DriveCreate a Bootable Ubuntu USB Flash Drive the Easy Way TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Office 2010 Product Guides Google Maps Place marks – Pizza, Guns or Strip Clubs Monitor Applications With Kiwi LocPDF is a Visual PDF Search Tool Download Free iPad Wallpapers at iPad Decor Get Your Delicious Bookmarks In Firefox’s Awesome Bar

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  • Disk wipe preferences

    - by hmvm123
    I manage a pool of systems that are loaded with software and sent to potential customers for evaluations which often land sensitive information on the drives. Before shipping them back, they typically like a standard wipe to be run to clean out the drives. Most are familiar with DBAN so I try to make sure it can work on my systems. Unfortunately, this means I'm usually in RAID driver hell trying to make sure that the versions out there support the ones my systems are shipping with. These are various kinds of 3ware and LSI ones. Consequently, I have DBAN 1.0.7 working on some, a beta version of 2.0 on the others and 2.2.6 on some of the latest SSD based ones. Now with the LSI controllers on my IBM x3550 M3s (1064/1068) I'm getting no love at all. Is there a way out? Do you buildroot with DBAN and try to piece the drivers together? Any other tools, free or commerical, that stay updated. I'm trying to walk people of varying technical proficiencies through this, so a boot disk with simple choices is preferable.

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  • Wipe, Delete, and Securely Destroy Your Hard Drive’s Data the Easy Way

    - by The Geek
    Giving a computer to somebody else? Maybe you’re putting it out on Craigslist to sell to a stranger—either way, you’ll want to make sure that your drive is completely wiped, scrubbed, and clean of any personal data. Here’s the easy way to do it. If you only have access to an Ubuntu Live CD or thumb drive, you can actually use that instead if you prefer, and we’ve got you covered with a full guide to securely wiping your PC’s hard drive. Otherwise, keep reading. Wipe the Drive with DBAN Darik’s Boot and Nuke CD is the easiest way to permanently and totally destroy every bit of personal information on that drive—nobody is going to recover a thing once this is done. The first thing you’ll need to do is download a copy of the ISO image, and then burn it to a blank CD with something really useful like Imgburn. Just choose Burn image to Disc at the start screen, select the little file icon, grab the downloaded ISO, and then go. If you need a little more help, we’ve got you covered with a beginner’s guide to burning an ISO image. Once you’re done, stick the disc into the drive, start the PC up, and then once you boot to the DBAN prompt you’ll see a menu. You can pretty much ignore everything on here, and just type… autonuke And there you are, your disk is now being securely wiped. Once it’s all done, you can remove the CD, and then either pack the PC up to sell, or re-install Windows on there if you feel like it. More Advanced Method If you’re really paranoid, want to run a different type of wipe, or just like fiddling with the options, you can choose F3 or hit Enter at the prompt to head to the advanced selection screen. Here you can choose exactly which drive to wipe, or hit the M key to change the method. You’ll be able to choose between a bunch of different wipe options. The Quick Erase is all you really need though.   So there you are, easy PC wiping in one package. What about you? Do you make sure to wipe your old PCs before giving them away? Personally I’ve always just yanked out the hard drives before I got rid of an old PC, but that’s just me. Download DBAN from dban.org Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips Use an Ubuntu Live CD to Securely Wipe Your PC’s Hard DriveHow to Dispose of Old Computers ResponsiblyHow To Delete a VHD in Windows 7Speed up External USB Hard Drives in Windows VistaSpeed Up SATA Hard Drives in Windows Vista TouchFreeze Alternative in AutoHotkey The Icy Undertow Desktop Windows Home Server – Backup to LAN The Clear & Clean Desktop Use This Bookmarklet to Easily Get Albums Use AutoHotkey to Assign a Hotkey to a Specific Window Latest Software Reviews Tinyhacker Random Tips DVDFab 6 Revo Uninstaller Pro Registry Mechanic 9 for Windows PC Tools Internet Security Suite 2010 Follow Finder Finds You Twitter Users To Follow Combine MP3 Files Easily QuicklyCode Provides Cheatsheets & Other Programming Stuff Download Free MP3s from Amazon Awe inspiring, inter-galactic theme (Win 7) Case Study – How to Optimize Popular Wordpress Sites

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  • How can I implement an Iris Wipe effect?

    - by Vandell
    For those who doesn't know: An iris wipe is a wipe that takes the shape of a growing or shrinking circle. It has been frequently used in animated short subjects, such as those in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon series, to signify the end of a story. When used in this manner, the iris wipe may be centered around a certain focal point and may be used as a device for a "parting shot" joke, a fourth wall-breaching wink by a character, or other purposes. Example from flasheff.com Your answer may or may not include a coding sample, a language agnostic explanation is considered enough.

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  • Secure wipe of a hard drive using WinPE.

    - by Derek Meier
    Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} The wiping of a hard drive is typically seen as fairly trivial.  There are tons of applications out there that will do it for you.  Point àClickàGlobal-Thermo Nuclear War. However, these applications are typically expensive or unreliable.  Plus, if you have a laptop or lack a secondary computer to put the hard drive into – how on earth do you wipe it quickly and easily while still conforming to a 7 pass rule (this means that every possible bit on the hard drive is set to 0 and then to 1 seven times in a row)?  Yes, one pass should be enough – as turning every bit from a 1 to a zero will wipe the data from existence.  But, we’re dealing with tinfoil hat wearing types here people.  DOD standards dictate at least 3 passes, and typically 7 is the preferred amount.  I’m not going to argue about data recovery.  I have been told to use 7 passes, and so I will.  So say we all! Quite some time ago I used to make a BartPE XP-based boot cd for the original purpose of securely wiping data.  I loved BartPE and integrated so many plugins into my builds that I could do pretty much anything directly from CD.  Reset passwords, uninstall security updates, wipe drives, chkdsk, remove spyware, install Windows, etc.  However, with the newer multi-core systems and new chipsets coming out from vendors, I found that BartPE was rather difficult to keep up to date.  I have since switched to WinPE 3.0 (Windows Preinstallation Environment). http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc748933(WS.10).aspx  It is fairly simple to create your own CD, and I have made a few helpful scripts to easily integrate drivers and rebuild the ISO file for you.  I’ll cover making your own boot CD utilizing WinPE 3.0 in a later post – I can talk about WinPE forever and need to collect my thoughts!!  My wife loves talking about WinPE almost as much as talking about Doctor Who.  Wait, did I say loves?  Hmmmm, I may have meant loathes. The topic at hand?  Right. Wiping a drive! I must have drunk too much coffee this morning.  I like to use a simple batch script that calls a combination of diskpart.exe from Microsoft® and Sdelete.exe created by our friend Mark Russinovich. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897443.aspx All of the following files are located within the same directory on my WinPE boot CD. Here are the contents of wipe_me.bat, script.txt and sdelete.reg. Wipe_me.bat:   @echo off echo. echo     I will completely wipe the local hard drives using echo     7 individual wipes. The data will NOT echo     be recoverable.  I will begin after you pause echo. echo Preparing to partition and format disk. Diskpart.exe /s "script.txt" REM I was annoyed by not having a completely automated script – and Sdelete wants you to accept the license agreement. So, I added a registry file to skip doing that. regedit /S sdelete.reg rem sdelete options selected are: -p (passes) -c (zero free space) -s (recurse through subdirectories, if any) -z (clean free space) [drive letter] sdelete.exe -p 7 -c -s -z c: echo. echo Pass seven complete. echo. echo Wiping complete. Pause exit script.txt: list disk select disk 0 clean create partition primary select partition 1 active format FS=NTFS LABEL="New Volume" QUICK assign letter=c exit *Notes: This script assumes one local hard drive – change the script as you see fit for your environment.  The clean command will overwrite the master boot record and any hidden sector information – so be careful!   sdelete.reg: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sysinternals\SDelete] "EulaAccepted"=dword:00000001   With a combination of WinPE, sdelete.exe and your friendly neighborhood text editor you can begin wiping drives as quickly and easily as possible!  I hope this helps, I get asked this a lot in my line of work. Best of luck, Derek

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  • HTG Explains: Why You Only Have to Wipe a Disk Once to Erase It

    - by Chris Hoffman
    You’ve probably heard that you need to overwrite a drive multiple times to make the data unrecoverable. Many disk-wiping utilities offer multiple-pass wipes. This is an urban legend – you only need to wipe a drive once. Wiping refers to overwriting a drive with all 0’s, all 1’s, or random data. It’s important to wipe a drive once before disposing of it to make your data unrecoverable, but additional wipes offer a false sense of security. Image Credit: Norlando Pobre on Flickr HTG Explains: Learn How Websites Are Tracking You Online Here’s How to Download Windows 8 Release Preview Right Now HTG Explains: Why Linux Doesn’t Need Defragmenting

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  • Blackberry Security Wipe

    - by GavinR
    What does a Blackberry "Security Wipe" (Options Security Options Security Wipe "emails, Contacts, etc") do? a) If I have an Enterprise Activation with my employer will a security wipe remove this? b) Will my phone still ring when my number is called or do I have to re-activate with my carrier?

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  • Wipe 12.04/Windows 7 dual boot setup and start fresh new 12.04

    - by dswhite85
    I have an Asus u56e laptop running dual boot setup, Windows 7 and 12.04. I had Windows 7 first. I was wondering what's the easiest way possible to erase/format my drive (500GB) so that it deletes Ubuntu and Windows 7 so I can reinstall 12.04 onto my whole drive? Does the Ubuntu Live CD help make this a possibility or is there something with gparted I have to tinker with? I've already got everything I need backed up. Any help would be much appreciated.

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  • Wipe free space on LVM-LUKS (dm-crypt) Volume

    - by peter4887
    My three partitions for my system are created with LVM on a LUKS partition (dm-crypt). These are /home, / and swap. The filesystem is ext4. They are encrypted, because they are on my laptop and I don't want that some laptop thieves get my data. But I often share my laptop with other people so they can access my encrypted partitions. I don't want that these people can recover my cache and all the data I deleted. So I'm now trying to wipe all my free space on /home to prevent against recovering with tools like photorec. (one overwrite should do, the need of multiple overwriting is just a rumor) But still I haven't found any solution to wipe this free space successfully. I tried dd if=/dev/zero of=/home/fillitup bs=512 count=[count of free sectiors] so my partition was complete full of data. df /dev/mapper/home said 100% is used and there are 0 sectors available. But I could still recover gigs of data with photorec, although I selected to recover just form the free space. photorec displays: /dev/mapper/home - 340 GB / 317 GiB (RO) , but df displays that the size of /home is just 313G, why are there these differences and what did the 340GB means? It looks like there is a place on my /dev/mapper/home partition, that I can't access to overwrite, but I can access it to recover. I also checked for corrupted sectors, but there aren't any. Maybe this is the space between my existing files? Did anyone knows why I can't wipe my free space with dd, and how I can find the location of the loads of recoverable files, to securely delete them?

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  • How to wipe an IPod with DBAN

    - by Matt Powers
    I'm looking to use a utility such as Darik's Boot And Nuke (www.dban.org) to wipe my iPod (classic fifth generation) so I can sell it on Ebay (without having to worry about my data being recovered.) Any suggestions on how to do this?

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  • How to wipe free disk space in Linux?

    - by Alex B
    When a file is deleted, its contents may still be left in the filesystem, unless explicitly overwritten with something else. "wipe" can securely erase files, but does not seem to allow erasing free disk space not used by any files. What should I use to achieve this?

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  • Securely wiping a file on a tmpfs

    - by Nanzikambe
    I have a script that decrypts some data to a tmpfs, the directory is secure (permissions), the machine's swap is encrypted (random key on boot) and when the script is done it does a 35 pass wipe (Peter Gutmann) of the cleartext on the tmpfs . I do this because I'm aware wiping files on a journaling file system is insecure, data may be recovered. For discussion, here're the relevant bits extracted: # make the tmpfs mkdir /mnt/tmpfs chmod 0700 /mnt/tmpfs mount -t tmpfs -o size=1M tmpfs /mnt/tmpfs cd /mnt/tmpfs # decrypt the data gpg -o - <crypted_input_file> | \ tar -xjpf - # do processing stuff # wipe contents find . -type f -exec bcwipe -I {} ';' # nuke the tmpfs cd .. umount -f /mnt/tmpfs rm -fR /mnt/tmpfs So, my question, assuming for the moment that nobody is able to read the cleartext in the tmpfs while it exists (I use umask to set cleartext to 0600), is there any way any trace of the cleartext could remain either in memory or on disk after the snippet above completes?

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  • Darik's Boot And Nuke - ERROR /dev/sda

    - by user1403844
    I'm trying to wipe the drive of an old company computer with DBAN so I can install Redhat Enterprise and learn Linux (it's a Dell Inspiron 1210, if that matters). I burnt DBAN to a CD and boot from that CD (running on an external USB CD drive). Whenever I try to run the utility--whether it's Autonuke, or any of manual wiping methods-- it spits on the errors: ERROR /dev/sdb ERROR /dev/sda From what I've read on some other forums, there are some issues with other drives or removable media interfering however I've disabled all other drives in bios, leaving just CD/DVD and the Hard Disk but still no luck. Any advice on how I can reconcile these errors and wipe the disk?

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  • How to wipe RAM on shutdown (prevent Cold Boot Attacks)?

    - by proper
    My system is encrypted using Full Disk Encryption, i.e. everything except /boot is encrypted using dmcrypt/luks. I am concerned about Cold Boot Attacks. Prior work: https://tails.boum.org/contribute/design/memory_erasure/ http://tails.boum.org/forum/Ram_Wipe_Script/ http://dee.su/liberte-security http://forum.dee.su/topic/stand-alone-implementation-of-your-ram-wipe-scripts Can you please provide instructions on how to wipe the RAM once Ubuntu is shutdown/restarted? Thanks for your efforts!

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  • Wiping Deleted Directory Entries and Defragmenting Directories

    - by Synetech inc.
    Hi, I have seen plenty of apps that wipe free space on a disk (usually by creating a file that is as big as the remaining space) or defragment a file (usually by using the MoveFile API to copy it to a new contiguous area). What I have not seen however is a program that wipes the deleted directory entries. That is, when a file is deleted, its information (name, dates, etc.) remain in the directory, but are simply marked as empty. That leaves all kinds of information in a directory entry, and also wastes space since (at least on FAT drives), the directory may be using several clusters. For example, if a directory once had a lot of files, it will be expanded to use another cluster which could be anywhere on the disk. This means that the directory is fragmented, and may be using more clusters than needed, possibly with 100’s of unused (ie, “deleted file”) entries between active files. Does anyone know of a program that can defragment/consolidate directories (ie, wipe unused entries, and move active entries together)? (I would really rather not have to resort to writing my own yet again.) Thanks a lot. EDIT Sorry, I should have said, Windows and/or DOS, for FAT*/NTFS.

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  • How to completely wipe a previous ClickOnce installation?

    - by Dabblernl
    I have a curious problem: My app is distributed through ClickOnce. I recently installed three new clients on a new location. They worked. After an update however, all old clients worked fine, but the three new clients did not. As my code is swallowing an exception somewhere I have been unable thusfar to pinpoint where the error lies. When I XCopy the latest version of the app to the desktop of the three new client computers the program works fine. So, I thought uninstalling and reinstalling the program from the download location should fix the problem, but it does not! I can think of two explanations: The new location has some firewall/virusscanner in place that doesn't like the latest version of my app when it is run from a standard ClickOnce directory, but it allows execution from the desktop. Some old settings (the app uses user scoped and app scoped settings) remain in effect after the uninstall. When I find and check the user.config file for the app however, I find no incorrect setttings there. Thusfar, I have been unable to reproduce the error on any other machine. How can I solve this!?

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  • How to completely wipe rubygems along with rails etc

    - by Earlz
    Ok, so I decided I'd be cool and try to use Rails3 that's in beta. Then, things were getting hard to manage so I got rvm. I installed ruby 1.9.2-head in rvm and things were working, and then a computer restart later rails wouldn't start up. So I figured I'd just try running the system ruby and start rails in it. same error. Then, I uninstalled rails3 and got rails: no such file or directory type errors.. So now I'm royally screwed because rails2 is still installed but will not uninstall because of invisible dependencies, along with a lot of other random gems. How do I completely clear out all ruby gems and such so I can start anew?

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  • 'unknown filesystem' grub rescue prompt; trying to wipe drive and boot 10.10 live

    - by Patrick
    Im currently running Win7, and want to wipe the drive and install 10.10. I have 10.10 loaded on a USB thumbdrive and it sees the device in BIOS but it only reaches a screen saying; Unknown Filesystem grub rescue> Ive read several results from google and a couple here where people are trying to dual boot and i assume save the data on the drive, but i dont care about doing that, and would prefer to just wipe the drive and start fresh. What steps can i take to get the drive to a point where i can load 10.10 live and get it installed?

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  • Why some recovery tools are still able to find deleted files after I purge Recycle Bin, defrag the disk and zero-fill free space?

    - by Ivan
    As far as I understand, when I delete (without using Recycle Bin) a file, its record is removed from the file system table of contents (FAT/MFT/etc...) but the values of the disk sectors which were occupied by the file remain intact until these sectors are reused to write something else. When I use some sort of erased files recovery tool, it reads those sectors directly and tries to build up the original file. In this case, what I can't understand is why recovery tools are still able to find deleted files (with reduced chance of rebuilding them though) after I defragment the drive and overwrite all the free space with zeros. Can you explain this? I thought zero-overwritten deleted files can be only found by means of some special forensic lab magnetic scan hardware and those complex wiping algorithms (overwriting free space multiple times with random and non-random patterns) only make sense to prevent such a physical scan to succeed, but practically it seems that plain zero-fill is not enough to wipe all the tracks of deleted files. How can this be?

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  • how to restore windows 7 to a know working state every time it boots

    - by Artanis
    A couple of days ago my mother asked me to set up a computer at his house, she wants to use it to basic web browsing, video chat and nothing more. The problem is, neither my mother nor my sister know anything about using or maintaining a computer. What I want is to have a working base install of windows 7 and just discard everything installed, downloaded, ... when it reboots. That way I can set up a partition just for saving files and whatever they do the computer will always return to a working state at start up. can that be done? PS: Sadly linux is not an option since my sister wants to be able to play some games with my steam account and not all of them run with wine.

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  • How do I reformat/reinstall an OS on a hard drive after its been wiped by eban?

    - by Aggrevated
    I am trying to install XP SP2 Home on a Dell Inspiron 531s. Yes it came with Vista but I happen to own a legal copy of XP. I bought the hard drive off eBay(used). I changed the bios settings to boot from CD and when I start up the computer it goes to the hard drive which says its been cleaned using eban XX.XXX.XXX. My problem is that I can't get the PC to boot from the XP disk. I have tried putting the disk into another PC it works. I have put the bad hard drive back in and the dvd+rw works. I am really stumped and am beginning to think that the hard drive is unusable. I only have the sata cords for 1 hard drive to be hooked up at a time. Any ideas or suggestions or confirmation that I can't use this hard drive would be appreciated. Yes I am probably a 'noob' but I have installed XP and Vista many times without any problems. I don't need to be put down on my level of experience I just need answers. Thanks Everyone

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  • How do I reformat/reinstall an OS on a hard drive after its been wiped by eban?

    - by Aggrevated
    I am trying to install XP SP2 Home on a Dell Inspiron 531s. Yes it came with Vista but I happen to own a legal copy of XP. I bought the hard drive off eBay(used). I changed the bios settings to boot from CD and when I start up the computer it goes to the hard drive which says its been cleaned using eban XX.XXX.XXX. My problem is that I can't get the PC to boot from the XP disk. I have tried putting the disk into another PC it works. I have put the bad hard drive back in and the dvd+rw works. I am really stumped and am beginning to think that the hard drive is unusable. I only have the sata cords for 1 hard drive to be hooked up at a time. Any ideas or suggestions or confirmation that I can't use this hard drive would be appreciated. Yes I am probably a 'noob' but I have installed XP and Vista many times without any problems. I don't need to be put down on my level of experience I just need answers. Thanks Everyone

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  • Is sudo dd taking too long to wipe hard drive?

    - by Adam133718
    I have a 200gb HDD which I removed from a macbook due to several corrupt files in startup. One thing led to another and I decided that I needed to format the drive. I used the command sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb which is supposed to wipe everything off of the hard drive. It is my understanding that the command writes 0's over every bit on the drive, which I would imagine must take a while. The process has been going for about 18 hours now. I can use other functions of operating system like the web browser and I can even use another terminal window, so I know the system is not frozen. Should I restart the process or let it continue on? Any advice will help. Thanks. By the way, I already noticed a post similar to this that was previously answered though the user was not using the same command as I was.

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