DVD-RW support

[HummerH2]

Forgive me if this subject has been covered on this forum, but I have searched and not found anything relating to my problem. I downloaded eraser 5.86 in hopes that I could use it to securely remove and overwrite the CD / DVD with random characters, which would satisfy security personel who would like to stop our practice of transfering data with a DVD-RW disc. Please tell me if I am wrong with my assumptions. After starting up eraser through the start menu, I select New Task. I don't see an option for my RW drive under the drop down for "unused space on drive" so I select "Files in folders" and browse to the E: drive. I select run and it acts as if it's going to work, but it finishes and gives me a "Access denied" on all the files on my RW disc I want erased. Am I doing something wrong or will this software not do what I am expecting of it? Thanks.

 

[jackjack]

Eraser would be over kill in this situation. Optical media (cd/dvd) do not work the same as magnetic media (hard drives) when it comes to erasing files.

You should find that your DVD/CD burning software has an option to do a full erase of a disk, this will be sufficient to prevent recovery.

To quote CD and DVD Forensics

Recovering data from a rewriteable disc is not possible once a full erase has been performed,because there is no data written in inter-track spaces.A full erase consists of writing over the entire surface of the disc,leaving no traces of the previous data.

This is different from the quick erase operation,which leaves the data on the disc intact.An unmodified consumer drive cannot access the data on a quick-erased disc,but a modified drive can.(Instructions on how to modify a drive are located in Appendix A.) Follow all of the cautionary notes,as there are significant hazards to the user from laser exposure from such modified drives.