posted on Sep, 13 2009 @ 12:54 AM
Originally posted by HunkaHunka
Then your friend never told you about 3x overwriting.
I perform forensics for a living, and although yes, there are files you delete that .......
Your assertion is simply false.
This is absolutely correct.
Each bit, once overwritten with new data will be effectively erased. Several drive utilities are also available which will write zero's to the actual
allocation space. This works very well to make the entire drive completely erased. However I am still a proponent of taking a 1/4 inch drill bit on
your high speed drill and perforating the platter.
Now to be a tad more technical, depending on the type of format, 4k block compared to 32 k blocks, it is possible to over write the drive with empty
folders each using a 32k block but not actually using up the drive space. In this case the drive may appear to be overwritten but still have data
available on the actual surface. (as I"m sure your aware)
This is why when I retire a drive..its put into a state where there simply isn't enough drive surface available to actually recreate the files. A
bunch of drilling goes a long way in protecting old data.
..Ex