Re: Starting again...(partitioning...)

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

and more: "... erasing past history is simply a matter of writing zeros over the entire disk before installing the operating system from installation media. After that, no remote intruder is going to be able to see files from a previous life of the machine. Overwriting with zeros also has the benefit that disk image copies compress better, and that deleted files are easier to find."
From: http://www.porcupine.org/forensics/forensic-discovery/chapter4.html

Of course, the "past history" remains available for those who get the actual HDD; only physical destruction of the HDD would make that data unrecoverable... of course, other machines on the network will still preserve some of your "history."

Michael


"Phillips" <afn18721@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:94552096-D17F-4FF5-A389-35A3BE909F9A@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I'll quote from some abstract: "Disk drive capabilities and processing power are steadily increasing, and this power gives... the possibility of using disks as data processing devices rather than merely for data transfers."
Michael

"John Whitworth" <sexyjw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:ubhIgB46IHA.3816@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Phillips" <afn18721@xxxxxxx> wrote in message news:0AD62382-4B12-4DC9-A2B0-F80559B3C0F8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Download some HDD utilities - major HDD manufacturers have such tools on their websites. Then, if you are sure you do not need the hidden partition, zero out (write 0's) on the entire HDD... will take a few good hours on a 1TB HDD - leave it overnight, maybe. Now, you have a pristine HDD (no worries about junk, malware etc.

Absolutely no point doing this whatsoever. How exactly is some old malware (that still exists but has no pointers to it on the disk directory) going to become active? It's just a collection of unloved and unused bits and bytes. If your OS suddenly looks somewhere it's not supposed to on your hard disk, then you have bigger problems than malware!

As I said before, the only reason to worry about old inaccessible data is if you think police forensics are going to crawl all over your drive. Or if you are disposing of a PC, and have confidential data on it.

JW


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