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I am looking for either a Linux distro I can load into a VM or,Just boot from a USB that i can do a massive data wipe on HDD, SDD and M.2's!
I used to have a tool I used at my job that was for Linux but, I also could use on Windows 10 to securely wipe data on customer drive's that was DOD standard, Linux Paragon Software. I was able to run this drives in Linux and Windows 10. This tool is no longer free and the one I have been using for years is no longer functional. Before anyone asks YES, I know there are Terminal commands for data wiping and a million other tools to do so. I need a tool that:
Wipes in the DOD standard.
Works with both Linux and Windows (10 & 11).
This is not for my personal use it is for customer's at my job that leave old drives behind.
DOD WIPE / DATA WIPE DRIVES
I am looking for either a Linux distro I can load into a VM or,Just boot from a USB that i can do a massive data wipe on HDD, SDD and M.2's!
I used to have a tool I used at my job that was for Linux but, I also could use on Windows 10 to securely wipe data on customer drive's that was DOD standard, Linux Paragon Software. I was able to run this drives in Linux and Windows 10. This tool is no longer free and the one I have been using for years is no longer functional. Before anyone asks YES, I know there are Terminal commands for data wiping and a million other tools to do so. I need a tool that:
Wipes in the DOD standard.
Works with both Linux and Windows (10 & 11).
This is not for my personal use it is for customer's at my job that leave old drives behind.
Fairly confused here.
So you're looking for a tool that you already know about but don't want to purchase as part of your paying job that you're doing for a customer??? Not sure why you're asking when you already know the answer. If this is for a customer, then THEY pay for the tools/time/work done...buy the tool you know about. And if you already know about a 'million other tools' to do this, why don't you use them???
And as smallpond said, the only real way to do this is physical destruction, and having worked with both the government and very large banks, that's the way THEY do it.
Parted Magic will securely wipe both HDDs and SSDs using the Internal Secure Erase command on both Windows and Linux computers.
The Parted Magic download is a boot disk operating system that runs from a DVD or USB drive independently of the installed OS. No installation is necessary.
What was the program that would zero on the drive like 20 times. Nukem or some such name.
We had a big demagnetizer to wipe drives. That was mostly effective on older drives but would wipe out scsi and others that had data on the drive to work.
M2 an SSD drives have a bad habit of moving blocks. It is possible that a number of blocks would still have data yet not able to access easily.
I run encrypted drives on my secure computer. I assume that someone with enough power might get in it but it will cost them.
What was the program that would zero on the drive like 20 times. Nukem or some such name.
You are probably thinking of dban i.e. Darik's boot and nuke and I am guessing the OP is referring to NISPOM DoD 5222.2M. Originally the short pass overwrote a hard drive 3 times and the long pass 7 times. However, there really is not a DoD standard any more and the NIST SP 800-88 media erasure guidelines are more relevant.
A good live distro for system administration would be Finnix. Put that on a USB stick and you'll have shred, nwipe, dd, and many other tools -- if you can't find your hammer.
Last edited by Turbocapitalist; 04-13-2024 at 09:01 PM.
For conventional spinning hard drives, Darik's boot and nuke should work. It writes random data to every sector of the drive the required number of times IIRC. For solid state drives, both ssd and nvme, the Arch linux wiki goes into the procedure in detail:
If you need to prove to some authority that the job was done right, you probably need to use some third party software that has been audited and approved for this purpose.
Do note that DBAN does not delete the drive's hidden HPA (host protected area) and DCO (drive configuration overlay).
DBAN (formerly Darik's Boot and Nuke) was acquired by Blancco who now market their Blancco Drive Eraser as a replacement, since the development of DBAN has ceased.
I zeroed an nvme recently just using dd and a bog standard debian live distro from a usbstick. It wasn't for security reasons but because windows was detecting some old data and wouldn't let me install a local account. I guess it depends how secure you want it but how hard would it be to recover data if you just did a few passes of writing zeros?
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