Questions tagged [wipe]
The wipe tag has no usage guidance.
138 questions
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How can I add current file size to the file name
I lost heaps of important data, plus failed backups etc. I did some recoveries but laptop drive had other plans, pushed data out of valid files + some recovery files had mismatched names or recovered ...
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2
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Can I run a laptop with no OS from a bootable USB thumbdrive
I have a HP Stream 14 with windows 10 that's useless because windows takes up the entire 32 GB hard drive. Can I wipe it and run from a bootable thumb drive?
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1
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Error formatting and creating partition on SSD in Ubuntu
After
Giving this Error:
Error formatting volume-Error wiping device: Failed to open the device
'/dev/sdb1' (udisks-error-quark,0)
How can I solve this problem and get the disk to format properly?
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6
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If a hard drive has sectors that are corrupt or physically damaged, can those sectors be written over?
I have a bootable FreeBSD drive that I'm using to wipe the contents of a hard drive before donating the PC to my local thrift store. I'm using the following command to achieve this:
dd if=/dev/urandom ...
- 253
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51
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Wiped and Reformatted external hard drive says it is completely full and windows cannot access it
I had a 1TB external HDD that developed an unresponsive folder. I used the errors checking tool on the properties tool tab, and that repaired the folder. I then moved the data off to a replacement ...
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1
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147
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What would trigger a Windows 10 PC to do a full factory reload automatically?
I got called out on a support call today where the computer had completely reloaded Windows 10 from scratch. All existing customer data, configuration, apps, etc were gone. There wasn't even anything ...
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1
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875
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Is there a Windows CMD command to wipe everything?
Is there a CMD command like rm -rf --no-preserve-root but for Windows? to wipe everything at once.
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1
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Correct syntax for SDelete to wipe free space on the disk?
If I use this syntax:
sdelete64.exe -p 3 -c 1% C
...where:
-p 3 sets number of overwrite passes to 3
-c 1% sets amount of space to leave free to 1%
C Specifies drive letter C:
... I get the error ...
- 633
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1
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247
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Can I format my HD from running Linux system?
I have a Debian Linux PC which I would like to have the HD completely wiped.
Is it possible to do this while running Linux, without having to insert a removable media and boot it?
The HD to be format ...
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4
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3
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3k
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How to wipe all data on HDD (Windows 10 system partition)?
I am a bit surprised that I didn't found a canoncial (= recommended by Microsoft) way of doing this by searching Google but here we are:
I am tasked to delete all data safely from a Windows 10 ...
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Does Google Chrome wipe the profile data?
When turning off sync in Google Chrome, there's an option called "Clear bookmarks, history, passwords and more from this device".
Will this do data erasure, so that the data is completely ...
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Is it normal that running a "wipe free disk space" utility finishes quicker the more times it's used?
I used cipher /w:C to wipe the free disk space on my C drive. The first time I did it, it took say 2 days. Then two days later I used it, and it took 1.5 days. Then again I used it and it took 1 day. ...
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143
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If a harddisk has format errors, would running disk wipe on it still wipe everything?
If a hardisk is connected via USB to Windows and I attempt to open it, Windows says it needs to be formatted before it can be used. If I ignore this message and run disk wipe on it (like the cipher ...
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1
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253
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Shredding an SSD (or: Is an SSD harder than a CD?)
I have a small office shredder which can destroy not only paper but also CDs and credit cards.
Can I use that to destroy an M2 SSD or will that break my shredder? In other words, are components of an ...
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1
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What does the command "fsutil file createnew" really do?
In the Windows OS command line, when I need to quickly create a file of arbitrary size, I use the command:
fsutil file createnew <filename> <size_in_bytes>
I recently created a 100GB file ...
- 9,357
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53
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Would using a single pass of schred on an encrypted SSD be an effective way to prevent accessing file data?
If I would perform a single pass of schred on a file on a (self)-encrypted SSD, would there still be a way to retrieve the file data without knowing the encryption key / password? Assume that the ...
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How to reset my profile in Windows 10 before returning PC to organization
I have a Windows 10 laptop with a regular domain account with no admin rights what-so-ever. Running MS Windows 10 Pro Education Version 1709.
I'd like to wipe the profile prior to returning the ...
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1
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890
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nwipe on USB external hard drive
I am currently running nwipe on a brand new external USB hard drive, using the default setting if DoD Short. The hard drive is brand new, USB 3.0, and 5TB in size.
When it started 14 Hours ago, the ...
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1
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DBAN on SSD using Quick Erase
I understand DBAN is not recommended for wiping SSD drives since DBAN was designed for HDD and SSDs should be wiped by either rotating the encryption key (if it is encrypted) or filling with zeros.
...
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4
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How does writing zeroes to a drive remove data from it?
I know a fair bit about the process of securely wiping drives, including that one wipe is usually sufficient and that no-one has yet (publicly) been able to recover a bit of data from one pass of ...
- 13.4k
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What is the operating system, intended to work with disks and able to wipe them?
I've got Windows and Kali Linux on my laptop. I want to erase both of them in several keyboard prints. So, what I need is to wipe both disks data (obviously, without leaving the OS) (with using an ...
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4
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Does wiping free space on disk free any space?
CCleaner has a feature for wiping free space on a disk. CCleaner's documentations says:
When you delete a file, Windows removes the reference to that file, but doesn't delete the actual data that ...
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Can my personal iPhone be wiped remotely via Exchange ActiveSync? [closed]
I have an iPhone 7 Plus. I connect to the corporate Exchange Server (via Outlook 365) using the plain Exchange account settings (under Passwords & Accounts).
In other words, I have not installed ...
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Destroying an internal hard drive
Does removing and soaking a computer hard drive in water with salt (sodium chloride) destroy the data on it?
If so, how long should it be immersed in the salt water?
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3
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4k
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How to wipe a disk completely that has been encrypted by ransomware
Recently my HDD was encrypted by a ransomware attack (I have no idea which encryption method has been used) and as a result I cannot access the contents of my HDD (see how Disk 1 seems in the first ...
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1
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Is there a faster way to verify that a drive has been fully zeroed?
In the coming months, I'm going to need to zero out a lot of disks. After wiping each drive, I need a quick way of making sure that the drive has been completely filled with zeroes.
I could open each ...
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147
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I just partially wiped out an external hard disk drive
I was installing Windows 10, so I cleared the C:/ partition on my internal hard drive, only then to be greeted by the message:
Windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk has an MBR ...
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2
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Why does dd give me an error at the end of zero-writing a disk?
I'm running Cygwin on Windows 7.
I was using the following dd command to securely erase a 1TB mechanical disk:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sde bs=4M status=progress
About 2 and a half hours into the ...
- 13.4k
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64
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Seagate hard drive not recognized on any computer - Would like to wipe
I have an old Seagate external hard drive that I would like to wipe clean and repurpose. However, it isn't showing up on any computer I try it on. I can't find it on my Mac, via disk utility or ...
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219
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Quick permanent erase with 3 modes of unnecessary files, short time and recovery search optimisation [duplicate]
My sister asked me to back her photos up to my external HDD and to format his laptop. Days later, my external HDD suffered a fail, resulting in loss of photos. I used Windows' Recuva, Linux's RD-Linux ...
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485
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Can´t format, write nor delete files on a corrupted microSD card
I have a SandDisk Ultra PLUS 16 GB microSD card
(This exact model)
and I'm trying to format it without any luck so far.
It's the microSD card that I've using in my Android phone for 3 years without ...
0
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1
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489
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linux shred does not remove traces of filename even after truncate/removal?
I'm testing the coreutils /usr/bin/shred command.
It leaves traces of a file's name even though I told shred to "truncate" (remove) the file. I was assuming that shred would remove all the metadata ...
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2
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545
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How to wipe OS only
I'd like to wipe my corrupted OS entirely before installing a new. I've found your answer how to do it along with the full disk, but I'd like to keep the other partitions (data).
How to wipe one ...
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340
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Windows 7: Cipher or Format console program to wipe (write 0) across a hard drive
How good of a job does Windows 7 cipher do in wiping a hard drives contents?
I have cmd elevated with administrator privileges and I'm running cipher with /w on a designated 1TB Seagate hard drive. ...
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1
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Can you effectively wipe a hard drive from the current Linux OS?
I have a laptop that is barely alive. The screen is busted. The power cord is frayed. The power indicator flashes red sometimes. Etc. So I want to wipe the hard drive as effectively as I can before I ...
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155
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Hard wiping Linux laptop to fix Wifi
Some time ago I booted my laptop up and for some reason my WiFi stopped working... F9 nor the WiFi switch and button seem to respond anymore no matter how or which order I press them. Messed with ...
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49
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In case of OS and MBR malware, what will be the difference between a factory reset, a format and a disk wipe? [duplicate]
In case of malware infection in latest windows OS, like win 10, which is the best course of action for complete disinfection - a factory reset using troubleshoot and recovery, a format of entire drive ...
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2
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253
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What marks data as deleted - the hard drive or the filesystem?
Anyone with a cursory understanding of data recovery and sanitisation as it relates to hard drives is aware of the concept that data "permanently" deleted from within an operating system is not ...
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2
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Format a USB Drive CDFS to NTFS
I have some USB Drives that came pre-programmed. They are read-only and are being loaded as a CD Drive (ISO9660 / CDFS). I cannot format the drives via the standard "right-click >> format". I have ...
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5
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6k
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How safely does reinstalling Windows wipe old data?
I've got a set of computers that have had privileged information on that I want to be able to re-use. If I used a Windows boot drive to re-install Windows, how sufficient would that be towards keeping ...
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How to Zero out free space on a pen drive on Windows?
I am looking for commands or methods whereby I can just write all zeros to the free space on a Pen drive on Windows OS. The existing files should not be affected.
There's a built in command called '...
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Wipe UEFI hard drive
I would like to completely wipe my hard drive but I can't achieve it because it's an UEFI hard drive so :
- DBAN won't work;
- I can't use tools such as HDDErase because I can't boot from FreeDOS ...
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Wiping free space - NFTS, exFAT?
I'm trying to wipe some of my older (NTFS, external) hard drives, but even after using 'Wipe free space' programs like CCleaner and Eraser, the file names are still visible in file recovery programs. ...
user900420
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Are some files that show up in the Windows Recycle Bin of a fully formatted secondary drive linked to another drive or physically present?
I have a primary (boot) SSD and a secondary HDD (via a SATA-to-USB adapter) connected to my computer. My goal is to sell the secondary HDD without exposing any previous data that was stored on it. I ...
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Cypher command din't wipe my deleted data
I used Recuva and got a list of deleted data that can be recovered, then applied the Windows command Cypher to wipe the partitions D and C, 3 passes were made.
cipher /w:D:\
cipher /w:C:\
Finally I ...
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Is the dban quick method for HDD equal to a full wipe?
I wiped my HDD with DBAN and the quick method. Craig Steven Wrigt says it‘s secure to erase an HDD one time. I think so too, but is the DBAN quick wipe a full one time wipe?
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Is the blocksize important when wiping a disk with dd and zeros
I used
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=4096
For wiping a disk.
Can be the blocksize a security risk or is it just speeding the thing up.
Sorry for my bad english
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If This Is TRIM, DBAN Should Work
I am informed that drive wiping tools do not work reliably on SSDs due to such features as wear leveling. Here, for example, a quote from MakeUseOf:
[T]o comply with wear levelling, the SSD must ...
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How to erase any kind of files after formating and installing Fedora 27 Workstation
How can I safely erase files that could potentially be recovered after a hard drive format and installation on a Fedora 27 workstation? I was using Windows 10, and everything that I had in Windows 10 ...
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How to securely erase HPA, DCO, and any bad sectors of a SCSI HDD
Does dd if=/dev/zero of =/dev/cciss/c0d0 bs=1M wipe over the HPA, DCO, and any bad sectors?
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