The Great Zero Challenge

[Dave Howe]

Caspar Bowden wrote:
>> admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk] On Behalf Of Mary Hawking
> ...
>> "We used the 32 year-old Unix dd command using /dev/zero as input to
>> overwrite the drive. "
>> Is this command as efficient as Slashdot implies, and if so could I run
>> it on Windows 98, 2000 and XP?
> 
> FYI - there's a Microsoft command-line utility which can be used to overwrite deleted data
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315672/en-us
> 
> Caspar
> 
Personally I would suggest heidi's /eraser/ freeware:

http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

note however that if the disc is faulty, then "hot redirect" could mean
the overwritten drive sectors are not those which contain the data, but
standins for said data sectors which are then not readable under normal
circumstances (but reachable with the right forensic software)

eraser can just use /dev/zero or can do more complex stuff - your choice.

DBAN is bundled with it, as a floppy image. note that dban does the
entire disk however, so you aren't going to be left with a viable
operating system if you run it (for that matter, you aren't going to be
left with a detectable partition structure after you run it, unless you
are *very* selective what you wipe :)