Hard Disk Wiping methods

Information removed from a hard disk drive by non-secure means (for example, by simple Windows delete) can easily be recovered. Utilizing specialized equipment, it is possible to recover even repeatedly overwritten information. Therefore, guaranteed data wiping is more important now than ever before.

The guaranteed wiping of information from magnetic media (e.g. a hard disk drive) means it is impossible to recover data by even a qualified specialist with the help of all known tools and recovery methods.

This problem can be explained in the following way: Data is stored on a hard disk as a binary sequence of 1 and 0 (ones and zeros), represented by differently magnetized parts of a disk.

Generally speaking, a 1 written to a hard disk is read as 1 by its controller, and 0 is read as 0. However, if you write 1 over 0, the result is conditionally 0.95 and vice versa – if 1 is written over 1 the result is 1.05. These differences are irrelevant for the controller. However, using special equipment, one can easily read the «underlying» sequence of 1′s and 0′s.

It only requires specialized software and inexpensive hardware to read data “deleted” this way by analyzing magnetization of hard disk sectors, residual magnetization of track sides and/or by using current magnetic microscopes.

Writing to magnetic media leads to subtle effects summarized as follows: every track of a disk stores an image of every record ever written to it, but the effect of such records (magnetic layer) becomes more subtle as time passes.

Hard Disk Wiping methods