What is the easiest way in Solus Budgie to wipe an external hard disk so that no data can be recovered from it?

  • WetGeek replied to this.

  • Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions.
    Your replies show why the Solus forum is a great place to get tech help and also learn new things!
    The disk in question is a spinning hard disk. After it is wiped, it will be used by someone else.
    I think I will use Gparted to format the disk to a different file system. That seems the simplest option and should serve my purpose.
    Thanks again!

    mgsurya What is the easiest way in Solus Budgie to wipe an external hard disk so that no data can be recovered from it?

    When you say "external," are you referring to a disk in an external enclosure, such as one that connects to a computer via USB, or are you talking about a bare disk with no way to connect it to a computer?

    And what level of privacy are you trying to obtain? Protection from a recycler service who does't know you at all, or protection from a government agency that's investigating you? Or something somewhere in the middle?

        WetGeek
        By 'external' I mean a disk in an external enclosure.
        I just want financial data to be wiped from the disk. As far as I know, no agency is investigating me! I am too small and ordinary for that.

            mgsurya By 'external' I mean a disk in an external enclosure.

            That simplifies the problem quite a bit. I understand that Hillary Clinton is a huge fan of it, as are some on this very forum. Although I've never used BleachBit, I understand it's in the repository, and will do exactly what you need.

            Package found in Solus repository:
            Name : bleachbit, version: 4.6.0, release: 19
            Summary : BleachBit frees disk space and maintains privacy
            Description : BleachBit quickly frees disk space and tirelessly guards your privacy. Free cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, shred temporary files,
            delete logs, and discard junk you didn't know was there. It wipes clean a thousand applications including Firefox, Adobe Flash, Google Chrome, Opera,
            and more.
            Licenses : GPL-3.0-or-later
            Component : security
            Dependencies : python-gobject python-requests
            Distribution : Solus, Dist. Release: 1
            Architecture : x86_64, Installed Size: 3.93 MB, Package Size: 673.00 KB
            Reverse Dependencies:

            Even simpler might be to use your DE's partition editor to create a new partition table on that disk. That will essentially wipe it clean. Bleachbit sounds like it could selectively remove the finacial data you want erased, and leave the rest of the disk intact. Your choice.

                I don't know if Budgie uses Gnome disks but you can format a drive with zeros with that.

                Also, look at the drive manufacturers website. There might be some sort of utility there.

                Before secure wiping please make sure that this is a spinning rusty disc drive and not a solid state or flash drive. Secure wiping the latter will severely damage them.

                  my 2 cents:
                  if feeling tinfoily then DD.
                  if feeling efficient: gparted

                  these would be the only two tools I would use.

                  • [deleted]

                  • Post #8
                  • Edited

                  TL;DR: Take the disk out of the enclosure and perform ATA Secure Erase.

                  --

                  BuzzPCSOS Writing 0s or even random junk on SSDs will be ineffective because of all the magic the controller performs. To sanitize a SATA SSD one has to run the (enhanced) secure erase ATA command, for which some manufacturers have their own tools, but one can also use hdparm for that. Though, one has to trust that the manufacturer has implemented the feature correctly. It also requires that the drive is connected on SATA (not some enclosure, USB adapter etc.)

                  Zeroing out a spinning HDD (as opposed to ATA secure erase) also has potential of leaving residue on host-protected areas and sectors marked as bad, but how much that matters depends on your security needs.

                  WetGeek The OP specified "so that no data can be recovered from it". If you only create a new partition table, that is not the case at all.

                      I suppose it depends just how big you want your tinfoil hat to be.
                      From my own experience deleting the partition table and then formatting the drive to a different file system seems to defeat most commercially available recovery software. Professional investigation agencies may still be able to sniff out something.
                      Or maybe fill the drive up with a bunch of big files (iso images? I seem to have a good selection) and then fill up the spaces with media clips and mp3s. Let them recover to their hearts content, the massive store of deleted dross will quickly deter all but the seriously determined with inside information.
                      Having previously recovered accidentally deleted files it is very scary how quickly things become unrecoverable when new files are being written to the drive after the event. After writing to the drive try and recover the sensitive data yourself as a test.
                      It is surprising how obviously folks tend to label sensitive data. Calling a file "My very personal and valuable account details.doc" is a red flag, call it something much more mundane like "Meeting minutes 19 Oct 2023.odt". Hide sensitive things in plain sight.
                      Password protect documents.
                      Keep sensitive data on disposable storage that can be destroyed at end of life.

                        BuzzPCSOS I suppose it depends just how big you want your tinfoil hat to be.

                        Exactly. That's why I asked, "what level of privacy are you trying to obtain?", in my first reply. His answer was, "no agency is investigating me". This thread has taken off, powered by a lot of assumptions.

                        A question I should have thought of at the time, but didn't until later is, "Do you want to keep and continue using the disk?". If the answer is "No, I'm throwing it away," then many types of blunt-force trauma might do the job quickly. Mgsurya made no mention of an SSD, so I assumed that by "hard disk," he meant it was a disk drive. Those contain neodymiun magnets that are fun to play with, and discs that can be scratched easily, rendering them pretty useless. For an SSD that's to be discarded, nearly any tool from your toolbox will do the job.

                        On the other hand, if the answer is, "yes, I'm going to keep using it, but I just want the financial data gone", that takes me back to my original suggestion of bleachbit. It's free, it's in the Solus repo, I understand that it works well, and someone who uses it might need to confirm this, but I believe it can be used selectively. E.g., just remove the financial data, but leave the birthday pictures, etc.

                          Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions.
                          Your replies show why the Solus forum is a great place to get tech help and also learn new things!
                          The disk in question is a spinning hard disk. After it is wiped, it will be used by someone else.
                          I think I will use Gparted to format the disk to a different file system. That seems the simplest option and should serve my purpose.
                          Thanks again!