Hard Drive Erase Software. Requirements For Selling Hard Drives

I like the mediatools software alot. Whats real nice is since I started using it I have been in constant email talks with the creator. He has implemented alot of the changed I told him abhout into his software to make it much friendlier to use. As far as time goes. Well let me put it this way. If i have any drives larger than 250gb I set them to be done when I go to bed and they are usualy done when I get up. As far as a report goes. Yes there is a printable report for each drive that you can print out after wipe is complete that pulls all the drive info off the drive and into the report.

I like this program because I use my main computer for the wiping stuff because I still havnt built my test bench up completly yet. So its windows based and seems to work well. I do use a 4 port startech dock conected via Esata so it goes pretty darn fast. Also with this program and my dock I can do 4 diferent size drives and when the smaller ones are done I can close them out plug in another drive and start again without stopping the other wipes.

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Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

Also with this program and my dock I can do 4 diferent size drives and when the smaller ones are done I can close them out plug in another drive and start again without stopping the other wipes.

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Yeah that is a big draw back to Dban cause you have to shut down to swap out drives. Also I have noticed lately that Dban has issues with some computers that have the memory card slots. I think I will have serious look at the Mediatools software. I don't have a ton of drives. Do you know if it can handle SCSI drives as well?
If not I could still use Dban for those.

Have you ever had to wipe zip disks before? I got some and the data was private so my only choice was to take the 1Gb zips apart and bend the platters or cut them up.

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Originally Posted by twmart

Yeah that is a big draw back to Dban cause you have to shut down to swap out drives. Also I have noticed lately that Dban has issues with some computers that have the memory card slots. I think I will have serious look at the Mediatools software. I don't have a ton of drives. Do you know if it can handle SCSI drives as well?
If not I could still use Dban for those.

Have you ever had to wipe zip disks before? I got some and the data was private so my only choice was to take the 1Gb zips apart and bend the platters or cut them up.

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Will wipe any drive that can be detected my disk manager. That even includes usb drives. Never dealt with zip drives sorry.

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Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

I like the mediatools software alot. Whats real nice is since I started using it I have been in constant email talks with the creator. He has implemented alot of the changed I told him abhout into his software to make it much friendlier to use. As far as time goes. Well let me put it this way. If i have any drives larger than 250gb I set them to be done when I go to bed and they are usualy done when I get up. As far as a report goes. Yes there is a printable report for each drive that you can print out after wipe is complete that pulls all the drive info off the drive and into the report.

I like this program because I use my main computer for the wiping stuff because I still havnt built my test bench up completly yet. So its windows based and seems to work well. I do use a 4 port startech dock conected via Esata so it goes pretty darn fast. Also with this program and my dock I can do 4 diferent size drives and when the smaller ones are done I can close them out plug in another drive and start again without stopping the other wipes.

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Terry can you provide a link to mediatools. I googled them and got several matches none were the obvious correct one, at least to me. Thank you, Mike.

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Originally Posted by miked

Terry can you provide a link to mediatools. I googled them and got several matches none were the obvious correct one, at least to me. Thank you, Mike.

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Hi Miked -

My name is Mike Fiato and I am a Product Manager with Prosoft Engineering and I have been the one working with Terry. Contact me and I can set you up with a 30 day demo, so you can try it out.
This is a new application for us , but we are adding new features all the time. Wipe should do everything you need.

For some reason I can't post a link. You find Wipe at prosofteng dot com. :)

Cheers,

mfiato at prosofteng dot com

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Originally Posted by miked

Terry can you provide a link to mediatools. I googled them and got several matches none were the obvious correct one, at least to me. Thank you, Mike.

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Dont know how this one got by me but here is the link mike. Some others pmed me wanting it as well but I couldnt reply inbox was full.
Mediatools Wipe - Disk Wiping Software For Windows | Prosofteng

do the hard drive docks permit hot swapping or do you have to still restart the computer between hard drive swaps?

Depends on the dock I guess. My docks allow me to hot swap. BUt I made sure to read that in the docs on the website before I bought them. I didnt want to reset my computer 100 time a week.

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Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

Depends on the dock I guess. My docks allow me to hot swap. BUt I made sure to read that in the docs on the website before I bought them. I didnt want to reset my computer 100 time a week.

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ok, sounds good, im willing to pay more if it can hot swap.

another question is my formatting software has the options for 1,3,7,35 passes, which one do you use?

I use dod 5220.22-m (h) its a 3 pass that does a random followed by 0's fallowed by 1's as i showed in another thred on the COD it took 70 minutes to do a 3 pass wipe on a 40gb drive. Would take over a day to do a 35 pass wipe.

Would anyone be willing to post some pics of their hard drive docking station? Sounds like something I might want to get.

Here is the one that I have.
All in 1 Dual HDD Hard Disk Dock Docking Station for 2 5" 3 5" SATA IDE USB Hub | eBay

There are many more to chose from here.
hard drive docking station | eBay

I am hoping to find a program that is compatible with a computer running Ubuntu 12.04. My computer has multi hot swap bays. Mike.

With Linux, you can simply use the "dd" command, no need for a program. In fact, I asked a computer geek/repair tech friend of mine and he was unaware of any wipe programs written for Linux, just the dd command.

Here's a link to a "how to" page on using the command: How to wipe a hard drive clean in Linux - a great resource for How To's from Wikia

Ok here is the deal. A command line wipe doesn't get rid of the info guys...I can do the same thing in windows and delete the partition. I can recover every bit of info with a simple software program.

You should be using software that is made for this like some of the ones mentioned above. You need to do a 3 pass at least...3 passes are DOD compliant and then there is a 7 pass which is NSA compliant. If a drive came from anywhere dealing with client info..ie many businesses...you need to be compliant with HIPPA. This is at the minimum 3 passes. And businesses like that require a COD (certificate of destruction)...OTHERWISE you and tge business can be sued if someone recovers data. True data destruction software will generate a COD for you for each drive...it gives the serial of the drive, some other specifics and the results of the data destruction...this is a MUST when dealing with HIPPA compliant clients....and really should be used all the time to CYA.

Make sure you KNOW what you are doing if telling businesses their drives are erased and then you resell them. Dont think you can grab a drive, hook it up and "format" said drive and everything is kosher. It can be a HUGE liability for you if you don't do things correctly and know what the heck you are doing.

Thanks for this thread everyone! Exactly what I was looking for. I've emailed them asking a question or two. I will be buying this software soon. (The MediaFiles software.) Thanks for the recommendation, Terry!

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Originally Posted by Mudlucky

Thanks for this thread everyone! Exactly what I was looking for. I've emailed them asking a question or two. I will be buying this software soon. (The MediaFiles software.) Thanks for the recommendation, Terry!

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Your welcome. Its mediatools not mediafiles. Ive been using it now for months and love it. the best part is they actually take my recommendations to make it better and put it into the software. Im still having some issues with the esata hook up with the 4 port dock but I dont think its related to the wiping software. I think its more windows related.

would wiping the drives clean bring in more money or removing the platters and all screws and recycling them as pieces? thoughts?
pluses and minues of each one?