Don’t Let Your Data Fall Into The Wrong Hands

If only people understood how hard it can be to totally delete data from a hard drive they would really be a lot more careful, especially in these days of identity theft and identity fraud. Data recovery companies are well skilled at restoring data, but then so are the computer criminal specialists, and if all you have done is a simple reformat or deletion then your personal data can be much more exposed than you would like to believe.

So if it is so hard to remove private data from an old hard drive what exactly should you be doing to ensure your data has no risk of getting into the wrong hands?

To put it simply there is no safe and easy way of ensuring that data is permantly eradicated from a hard disk or any other form of storage medium in reality. That doesn’t mean however that it can’t be done.

In order to completely erase data on a drive it is best to overwrite the original several times but not necessarily using the same methodology on each rewrite. Using a method that involves numerous passes over the data either using specialist software or with a manual process that adheres to recognized data erasure standards will under most circumstances guarantee that the data has been successfully erased.

There are many companies that can provide such data elimination services, and there are also a number of software applications that can serve the process including Evidence Eliminator, M-Sweep Pro Data Eliminatior and R-Wipe software from the company behind R-Studio Data Recovery Software.

Apart from software and manual deletion there are more robust methods of data disposal which is commonally know as data destruction. This involves the complete destruction of the disks to the point where recovery would be impossible.

If you wish to attempt this yourself, it is important to note that the platters within the device should be completely destroyed, this means bending, scratching, smashing, shattering or whatever else seems reasonable to completely annihilate the hard disk platter.

Always remember deleting a file does not remove your data beyond the point of recovery. Formatting a hard disk, even full formats/low level formats do not guarantee complete data erasure. Re-installing an operating system does not get rid of your data either. The only reliable method is the multi-pass method.

If your data is business critical or extremely sensitive, always ensure that you can have the data certifiably removed from the storage media, whether that media be Flash Memory device, a hard disk drive, a RAID Array, Floppy Disk or CD / DVD Optical Media often only a professional can help you.

Your local data recovery company will be able to advise you on safe hard drive recovery data disposal methods and will probably have a local service. data recovery and data disposal should always be left to professional operators who are happy to certify their work.

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