I have a faulty external hard drive that I want to nuke before I take it back to Maplins. I have formatted it but I want to overwrite the whole disk before it goes anywhere.
Does anyone have any recommendations for free software to overwrite everything on the disk with ones and zeroes?
De-Gaussing is not an option and there's nothing indecent on it, before someone asks!
You have a friend with a Mac? Ask them to erase them with a 10 pass random bits. Will take forever (if the drive is huge it will take forever and a day) but it is fairly secure.
errm, if it's faulty surely you won;t be able to overwrite it?
there's no easy way to do this if the disk is having read/write issues other than with a big magnet.
File shredder .
Unfortunately no handy friends with a Mac.
Yes, it will take ages as it's a 2tb drive! But it's worth the wait, from what I've read...
wwaswas - Membererrm, if it's faulty surely you won;t be able to overwrite it?
there's no easy way to do this if the disk is having read/write issues other than with a big magnet.
Yes, I can overwrite it as it's only occasionally faulty (sounds odd, I know...)
Big magnets at work but too much grief to get it there!
Thanks Neil, I'll give it a look
Just download 2tb worth of octoporn. That should do the trick. Or is that the problem?
Occasionally faulty - could it be getting too hot ?
Stick it in a PC with a desk fan blowing over it whilst you try to wipe it.
DBAN.
5thElefant - MemberJust download 2tb worth of octoporn. That should do the trick. Or is that the problem?
Thanks, I should have guessed that someone would say that!
Thanks Cougar, I'll give that a look too.
@Cranberry - don't think it's getting too hot... Will bear that in mind.
I just took my computer to PC World.
"too"?
You can use DBAN, or you can do it wrong. (-:
Darik's Boot and Nuke-DBAN
Run the 7 pass version for military standard obliteration of data.
On second thoughts, don't take your computer to PC World.
@Cougar and Spongebob - will DBAN let me choose the disk I want to nuke?