[Ti] OT Erasing a hard drive

[b]

According to Bill Palmer:

>  >
>>  You can use the options tab in Drive Setup to select "Zero All Data".
>>  You don't have to use Symantec's anything. Doing that writes zeroes to
>>  all data sectors on the HD. You can't erase anything more than that. :)
>>
>>  Rick Banuelos
>
>You might think so, but you'd be wrong.  Sufficiently motivated (and 
>funded), it is
>still possible to recover the data off a disk drive that has been 
>overwritten.  The
>data is stored in analog form, and minute traces of the previous 
>state of the bits can
>be recovered by small-signal analysis.

For most people, a single-pass erase unused space, even using the 
feature [one of many] in File Buddy 7 [the OSX version] will do fine. 
Writing zeroes to an entire drive takes time, but as far back as i 
can remember ]in "PGP days"] 3 to 6 'passes' with over-writes, was 
considered 'Pretty Good'.

One would would have to have well-funded and extremely curious 
'enemies' for a 3-pass over-write to be foiled. On the bright side, 
because we're on LCD's, we have no fear of having Video Emissions 
from our screens, which, with CRTs, can be 'read' through curtains 
and windows, without a direct 'line-of-sight'....

~flipper