Is quick erase any good?

[Anonymous]

I'd like to use the quick option for the DBAN boot floppy because autonuke takes too long for the (low) sensitivity of info on the drives I wipe, but how well does the quick erase work?

Basically, if there is no reasonable chance of anyone short of the NSA recovering after autonuke, what kind of a chance does an smart (not genius) hacker have at recovering data not worth more than a couple hours of time after a quick erase?

Thanks

 

[Swifty]

All data can be recovered using specialist forensic hardware. A quick wipe may be OK but I cannot say for certain as I've never had to use DBAN. If you use XP/NT/2000 then someone using a tool such as an NTFS file recovery tool will probably be able to restore some files as an NTFS file recovery tool can recover data after 3 reformats. A smart person/hacker with a few hours to kill that also has the tools at his/hers disposal might be able to recover any info.

Do you use an Intel motherboard? If so, try updating it's drivers and run a full erase and see if things speed up.

 

[Anonymous]

Here's my question about the quick wipe option of DBAN:

Has anyone here ever recovered or known anyone who has recovered information from a drive that has been quick wiped?

I don't want to know how, I just want to know if it is possible for the (above) average geek.

 

[Anonymous]

All data can be recovered using specialist forensic hardware.

Definitely not true, see the posting on the Eraser forum for details. And please do not post misconceptions or your own beliefs as facts unless you have some concrete evidence to back it up. Sorry for being harsh about this, but this is getting annoying.

NTFS file recovery tool can recover data after 3 reformats

Formatting the drive does not overwrite the data at all. Thus, you're able to easily recover what remains. The file recovery tool is able to reconstruct the file system from what doesn't get replaced by a reformat. However, overwriting just once (successfully that is) is enough to prevent software recovery. I believe DBAN's quick erase does just this, so I suggest you give it a try.

if there is no reasonable chance of anyone short of the NSA recovering after autonuke

But still, lets not believe all the wild claims various people post on their web sites. If you put enough money, time and expertise on it, it may very well be possible to recover portions of overwritten data from a hard drive. This pretty much requires using an electron microscope, and depending on the drive type and the number of overwriting passes, it is quite unlikely that all overwritten data can be ever recovered.

what kind of a chance does an smart (not genius) hacker have at recovering data

There is absolutely no chance that a "hacker" can recover properly overwritten data from your hard drive.

 

[Anonymous]

what kind of a chance does an smart (not genius) hacker have at recovering data

There is absolutely no chance that a "hacker" can recover properly overwritten data from your hard drive.

But that doesn't answer what was asked.

To rephrase based on your answer, does the quick erase option "properly overwrite data" well enough to foil an average data thief?

 

[garrett01]

>>To rephrase based on your answer, does the quick erase >>option "properly overwrite data" well enough to foil an average data >>thief?
Quick erase will prevent recovery of your data. You are perfectly safe from the average data thief using this option.

Recovery like encryption is based on time and money and a battle between the incompetence of all parties involved.

Modern drives are high density and are so full of data from the OS and all your applications that deciding between magnetic 'ghosts' of a randomly erased file and real data on a drive that has been wiped would ‘generally’ take massive effort.
Generally: as in if you bought a pc and had on it nothing but your secret document and repeatedly opened this one doc and saved it again. Then the drive would have over time an image burned onto it of the document.

Forensic analysis by 'experts' involves mirroring the drive image with tools like encase etc and searching for test strings and known file types.

Stories of data recovery generally involve cases where the drive has been physically damaged and the recovery company has replaced key components to recreate the drive readers. The underlying platters had not been wiped but contained real data in its structured form.

Garrett

 

[thedrunk]

I am going to say this as far as Dban you can recover data but the data you recover would not be usefull to any one short of a technophile that specilizes in data recovery for data farming. You got bits of info that are left but at a trace amount if that, in order to string the data to anything revelent usage for any purpose one must spend 3 to 12 days depending on what you are trying to piece together..

I know for a fact that items can be recovered.. I expermited with a jpg picture on a 20Gig hdd and all I was able to recover was one small section of the photo in full and reconstruct it even then you can tell I had missplaced data but the geist of it was clear.. if you have nothing else to do and you are consumed with the ""information " you want then some one could spend week, Months, Years even recovering any thing revelent to use.....

Most above average data recoverers that are in to data farming will bypass a drive that has been whiped or blank making a one run using free or open source data recovery to try to gather info preferring to go the easier route a HDD that is known to have info on it that will provide more usefull with quicker results, IE 2 to 4 hours of searching vs days, weeks, months, years to recover a Dban quick wipe...........

I know of four orginizations that can recover data form a full nuke of Dban, 1) NSA 2) CIA 3)MIT 4) Bill Gates........
if they would even try to recover data it must be national security or apple secreats..........