Format Question !

I am selling a computer that I have been using as a dual
business/pleasure machine .
I have 2 drives one with WinXP installed the second with Mandrake
Linux 9.2 .

I have used the XP drive exclusively for my business needs and there
are some sensitive documents stored in various directories .

The Linux drive I used only for pleasure , internet access etc.
and will just format this drive with the fat 32 file system .

My question is will a simple fat 32 format be secure enough to
make recovery of my business documents impossible in futre or
do I need to use some other type of software ?

Any help or advice would be appreciated ..

George ..

George

No. The data must be overwritten at least 3 times so get a program that like
Norton. There should be some freeware/shareware ones also.

--

************************************************

g-w


"George" <> wrote in message
news: s.com...
> I am selling a computer that I have been using as a dual
> business/pleasure machine .
> I have 2 drives one with WinXP installed the second with Mandrake
> Linux 9.2 .
>
> I have used the XP drive exclusively for my business needs and there
> are some sensitive documents stored in various directories .
>
> The Linux drive I used only for pleasure , internet access etc.
> and will just format this drive with the fat 32 file system .
>
> My question is will a simple fat 32 format be secure enough to
> make recovery of my business documents impossible in futre or
> do I need to use some other type of software ?
>
> Any help or advice would be appreciated ..
>
> George ..
>

"George" <> wrote in message
news: s.com...
> I am selling a computer that I have been using as a dual
> business/pleasure machine .
> I have 2 drives one with WinXP installed the second with Mandrake
> Linux 9.2 .
>
> I have used the XP drive exclusively for my business needs and there
> are some sensitive documents stored in various directories .
>
> The Linux drive I used only for pleasure , internet access etc.
> and will just format this drive with the fat 32 file system .
>
> My question is will a simple fat 32 format be secure enough to
> make recovery of my business documents impossible in futre or
> do I need to use some other type of software ?
>
> Any help or advice would be appreciated ..

There are various tools out there that will certainly make it a lot harder
to retrieve anything.

I've used SDelete in the past
(http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/sdelete.shtml), but the only way
to be truly sure involves a clubhammer or a blowtorch.

--

Hairy One Kenobi

Disclaimer: the opinions expressed in this opinion do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of the highly-opinionated person expressing the opinion
in the first place. So there!

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 12:57:38 GMT, George <> wrote:

>I am selling a computer that I have been using as a dual
>business/pleasure machine .

You have one of these, don'tcha:

http://www.blissbox.com/store/detail.asp?productid=1516

>My question is will a simple fat 32 format be secure enough to
>make recovery of my business documents impossible in futre or
>do I need to use some other type of software ?

Unless you use a secure delete utility of some kind, the answer to
your question is no.

--
http://www.cotse.net - Use it, you know you want to.
If you're too scared to go look for yourself, ask me
about COTSE. I'd be happy to tell you about it.

I'm in chorus with the rest. Use a utility like Symantec's GDisk to "wipe" the data.

Dave



"George" <> wrote in message
news: s.com...
| I am selling a computer that I have been using as a dual
| business/pleasure machine .
| I have 2 drives one with WinXP installed the second with Mandrake
| Linux 9.2 .
|
| I have used the XP drive exclusively for my business needs and there
| are some sensitive documents stored in various directories .
|
| The Linux drive I used only for pleasure , internet access etc.
| and will just format this drive with the fat 32 file system .
|
| My question is will a simple fat 32 format be secure enough to
| make recovery of my business documents impossible in futre or
| do I need to use some other type of software ?
|
| Any help or advice would be appreciated ..
|
| George ..
|

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 23:17:08 GMT, "David H. Lipman"
<DLipman~nospam~@Verizon.Net> wrote:

>I'm in chorus with the rest. Use a utility like Symantec's GDisk to "wipe" the data.
>
>Dave

Thanks to all for the advice

George !!
>
>
>
>"George" <> wrote in message
>news: ws.com...
>| I am selling a computer that I have been using as a dual
>| business/pleasure machine .
>| I have 2 drives one with WinXP installed the second with Mandrake
>| Linux 9.2 .
>|
>| I have used the XP drive exclusively for my business needs and there
>| are some sensitive documents stored in various directories .
>|
>| The Linux drive I used only for pleasure , internet access etc.
>| and will just format this drive with the fat 32 file system .
>|
>| My question is will a simple fat 32 format be secure enough to
>| make recovery of my business documents impossible in futre or
>| do I need to use some other type of software ?
>|
>| Any help or advice would be appreciated ..
>|
>| George ..
>|
>

"David H. Lipman" <DLipman~nospam~@Verizon.Net> wrote in message
news:ULDPb.4790$...
> I'm in chorus with the rest. Use a utility like Symantec's GDisk to
"wipe" the data.

Erm, FDISK with different spelling, no? Does *nothing* to the actual data on
the disk.

You could (showing my age here) pay a lot of money to get-in a company that
will guarantee that they will extend the life of your diskpacks- did
approximately the same for our 'packs as Fat Man did for Nagasaki.

Apart from the "suntan".

Funnily enough, I've never even made the connection before..!

H1K

GDisk is a partitioning and wiping utility and a version is included with all versions of
Symantec Ghost and probably other Symantec suites.

Go to the following URL:
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...ghost/manuals/

Look for the PDF - "DoDwipe.pdf"

While the software conforms to the latest DoD specifications for wiping a hard disk that
does NOT mean the DoD nor the individual services have approved this software to wipe DoD
hard disks. The US Army spcifically dos not. However, for business or personal use the
utility will do the job excellently.

Dave



"Hairy One Kenobi" <abuse@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in message
news:yCEPb.8222$...
| "David H. Lipman" <DLipman~nospam~@Verizon.Net> wrote in message
| news:ULDPb.4790$...
| > I'm in chorus with the rest. Use a utility like Symantec's GDisk to
| "wipe" the data.
|
| Erm, FDISK with different spelling, no? Does *nothing* to the actual data on
| the disk.
|
| You could (showing my age here) pay a lot of money to get-in a company that
| will guarantee that they will extend the life of your diskpacks- did
| approximately the same for our 'packs as Fat Man did for Nagasaki.
|
| Apart from the "suntan".
|
| Funnily enough, I've never even made the connection before..!
|
| H1K
|
|

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 12:57:38 +0000, George wrote:

> I am selling a computer that I have been using as a dual
> business/pleasure machine .
> I have 2 drives one with WinXP installed the second with Mandrake
> Linux 9.2 .
>
> I have used the XP drive exclusively for my business needs and there
> are some sensitive documents stored in various directories .
>
> The Linux drive I used only for pleasure , internet access etc.
> and will just format this drive with the fat 32 file system .
>
> My question is will a simple fat 32 format be secure enough to
> make recovery of my business documents impossible in futre or
> do I need to use some other type of software ?
>
> Any help or advice would be appreciated ..
>
> George ..

The question is "how sensitive". The more sensitive, the more effort
someone would be willing to invest to recover them, all the way to taking
a tunneling electron microscope to the hard disk platters.

If the sensitivity is at the "ouch" level a simple format (or better -
fdisk changing the partition table + format) would do.

If it's jail-time for you but (relatively) little financial gain for
someone else use an erasure utility (Symantec's GDisk comes to mind),
followed by fdisk and format as above.

If it's "numbered bank account"/"human life" sensitive take the disk out,
take it apart, bake the platters in a furnace for at least an hour,
sandblast them and cut them into pieces. Dispose of the pieces in garbage
dumps in separate cities (countries if you can).
--
Mailman



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"David H. Lipman" <DLipman~nospam~@Verizon.Net> wrote in message
news:NQEPb.4931$...
> GDisk is a partitioning and wiping utility and a version is included with
all versions of
> Symantec Ghost and probably other Symantec suites.
>
> Go to the following URL:
> ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...ghost/manuals/
>
> Look for the PDF - "DoDwipe.pdf"
>
> While the software conforms to the latest DoD specifications for wiping a
hard disk that
> does NOT mean the DoD nor the individual services have approved this
software to wipe DoD
> hard disks. The US Army spcifically dos not. However, for business or
personal use the
> utility will do the job excellently.

Good point - I'd forgotten that. (Yup, I have a copy already /and/ have used
the function - which makes my error even more unforgivable!)

Can't confirm that it works, though - IIRC the only time that I did use it
(dying Maxtor 80GB drive), I gave up after 24 hours.

SDelete did the job in a fraction of the time (I suspect that the disk
access code is the same as in Ghost, i.e. it can't cope with a knackered
drive)

H1K