According to Dell CS this procedure completely removes all past data and makes it unretrievable by any means. I've read some opposing views on Yahoo answers. If not, how about some of the commercial 'wipe clean' products out there? Or, as some have stated is a hammer the only true option? Thanks
2007-01-13 15:01:05 · 5 answers · asked by butkus 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Other - Hardware
No restore does not erase all of data.Formating and fdisk does not completely erase your information either .The only way to completely erase all data is using a soft ware the formats your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
2007-01-13 15:08:58 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
a good forensic program can still retrieve information from a "restore"
http://dban.sourceforge.net/
Darik's Boot and Nuke will wipe a drive using Department of Defense wipe method........writing 1's and 0's several times across each block on the disk. you can choose a quick method which will take quite some time on a 160GB drive or a more intense erase which will probably take most of the day.
a single time would be sufficient but if you are very paranoid you can do it a few times to be sure.
You can download an EXE which you can make a floppy from or an ISO which is a disk image for a CD which can be written by programs like Nero or a bunch of others........
The commercial products will perform the SAME as Darik's free General Public Licensed (FREE) one. I use it all the time at my job to junk systems.....A DoD erase will make it nearly or just impossible to pull data
2007-01-13 15:41:38 · answer #2 · answered by Jeffrey F 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No it won't only something that zeros out the entire drive would work. Something like http://dban.sourceforge.net/ will work. You can use undelete utilities even after a format or system restore. Someone could still get information off. I have done this for many companies who don't want to have any of their data fall into the wrong hands.
2007-01-13 15:23:12 · answer #3 · answered by William S 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
System restore does not wipe clean your computer. The only way to start fresh is to reformat your hard drive and reinstall your operating system.
2007-01-13 15:06:25 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It does not! To remove all data you must remove your hard drive and freeze it twice!
2007-01-13 15:04:47 · answer #5 · answered by John W 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋