How do I do "wipe" in WinNT

[Marc Mutz]

Wesley J Landaker wrote:
> 
<snip>
> All the arguments about possible not overwriting in place don't apply
> if you have a FAT filesystem. Once the data is out of the write cache,
> It does always overwrite files in place, assuming you don't resize the
> file first. (=
<snip>

Then you better turn off the write-cache on your hard disk. Otherwise,
your disk might out-smart you if you iterate too fast, effectively
writing only the last iteration onto the medium.

> 
> Obviously, no shredding or wiping program is going to be absolutely
> foolproof, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't use one at all.
> 
<snip>

That is correct, although personally, I don't find it obvious at all. In
fact, it is quite the opposite. Common sense tells us that if we
overwrite the data on the media, the data is lost. Yet data-recovering
companies can bring your deleted data back even when the blocks in
question were written to dozens of times. Some claim that nothing that
was on a harddisk will ever be lost. Except if you shred your hard disk,
heat the pieces within a strong magnetic field above the Curie
temperature and pour acid over the remains. This is exactly what you
should do with your hard disk if you _really_ need to delete. Everything
else can probably be overcome.

Marc

-- 
Marc Mutz <Marc@Mutz.com>     http://EncryptionHOWTO.sourceforge.net/
University of Bielefeld, Dep. of Mathematics / Dep. of Physics

PGP-keyID's:   0xd46ce9ab (RSA), 0x7ae55b9e (DSS/DH)


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