hello
i though his was not possible but I have read about certain softwares supposedly capable of recovering securely erased devices(from 1 to 7 passes)erased using deleting software like ccleaner.
is this true?
I´d like to add that the way i use to erase devices(HDDs, USB pendrives, SD cards, etc), consists of doing first a windows fat32 format(not quick format) and then using ccleaner, 7 passes erasing.
One write and your data has gone - unless you are using a 10 year old disk drive, or you have the good/bad luck that the sector has been remapped by the P / G List in the drive
^^^ this.
And what happens with 10 or more years old hard drives? I have a few of them from my old computers and I have tried the above mentioned erasing system(ccleaner and 7 passes erasing). It doesn´t work with them? Thanks
My oldest discs I am referring is one from around 1996, Seagate, 3,5", 20GB
Other 2,5" circa 1999 5GB.
Both IDE.
And what happens with 10 or more years old hard drives? I have a few of them from my old computers and I have tried the above mentioned erasing system(ccleaner and 7 passes erasing). It doesn´t work with them? Thanks
I am far from an expert, but this why/how you can recover previously wiped data has always interested me. Only one explanation I've heard has made technical sense to me. As I said, I am not an expert, so take it with a grain of salt.
Back in the good old days HDs were built using stepper motors. Each track would, in essence, be a notch on the stepper motor. There was no in between. Think of it as a number line, there is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. But, with a stepper motor there was no such thing as 2.5, or 1.25. This becomes important because as the disk operates, the stepper motor goes to the same radial distance always; however, the disk also heats up and expands. Thus, what was a distance of 2 on the disk, becomes a 2.5 when it expands. When the disk is wiped, it may over write the data at distance 2, leaving the data written at distance 2.5 intact.
This should not be the case with the newer motors, that can and do compensate for the expansion of the disk.
Thus, in theory, any HD that uses a stepper motor, should be able to find some remnants of data after a wipe (although, multiple passes decreases this chance, since the disk will be heating up as it wipes). But in practice, the equipment is cost-prohibitive.
The big problem with the reading half tracks is which bit of data are you actually reading. If one takes a FAT directory sector, it may have been written 20 times, before the erasing. If you can read an off track sector, will it be previous 1, or previous 12 you have found (depending on the temperature of the drive when written / erased).
Start with the budget of the FBI (in a good year)
Start with the budget of the FBI (in a good year)
Nah, we did it (about 13 years ago) with a lot smaller budget than that.