Vista Security Center: Fuck off. - Page 3

bluestarultor · 03-18-2010, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

Right.

To format a drive, you are resetting all of the sectors on the disk's platters. In some instances, you're just erasing the master boot record and partition tables while technically leaving the data, or more precisely the 1s and 0s set in the platters, in a recoverable state. More often, however, the entire drive is zero'd out, effectively making the drive the same as when it was first made.

In either case, the OS is toast unless you have the right tools to recover the drive/rebuild the MBR and relevant tables in the former case.

More often? When did this suddenly happen? When you format a drive, all it does is go and mark all writable sectors as free. Unless you specifically shred it or something, the data stays put until overwritten and can be recovered. It's just faster and easier that way.

synkr0nized · 03-18-2010, 10:23 PM

*shrug* I assume that since full formats, not quick, supposedly also check the drive for bad sectors it's zero-ing the data and read/writing to each sector to test it. Perhaps that is incorrect and it is only truly being cleared if you manually initiate such a format.

bluestarultor · 03-18-2010, 10:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

*shrug* I assume that since full formats, not quick, supposedly also check the drive for bad sectors it's zero-ing the data and read/writing to each sector to test it. Perhaps that is incorrect and it is only truly being cleared if you manually initiate such a format.

Well, to nitpick, Windows doesn't offer an option to zero out the drive. Some versions let you shred it up to four passes, but that's not actually zeroing so much as randomly writing to scramble the data into patterns that drives don't look for (I can explain this more in depth, if you like). Possibly there's some third-party software that lets you zero out, but nothing native and certainly not a default format. A quick format just formats without checking the drive, where a slow format simply checks the drive for errors in addition. Neither of them prevent the recovery of data. A drive almost never is zeroed. It's much faster, easier, and more efficient to simply mark the sector as empty so the data in it can be overwritten on an as-needed basis.

synkr0nized · 03-19-2010, 12:45 AM

Bugger. I guess it's back to open-source solutions when I've got drives to format and sell, as I prefer to zero them. A few times.

Which is like virtually never, so it's not really a problem for me. I've actually only recently given away a 6.4 GB drive that, when I had bought it years ago, had been huge at one time. lololdparts

Eltargrim · 03-19-2010, 08:47 AM

Synk, check out DBAN for your drive data security needs. It wipes them clean

03-18-2010, 10:23 PM	#22
synkr0nized synk-ism Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: throughout the Wired Posts: 6,857	I haven't formatted a used drive recently. shrug I assume that since full formats, not quick, supposedly also check the drive for bad sectors it's zero-ing the data and read/writing to each sector to test it. Perhaps that is incorrect and it is only truly being cleared if you manually initiate such a format. __________________ Find love.

03-19-2010, 12:45 AM	#24
synkr0nized synk-ism Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: throughout the Wired Posts: 6,857	No, I don't need you to explain anything to me. Bugger. I guess it's back to open-source solutions when I've got drives to format and sell, as I prefer to zero them. A few times. Which is like virtually never, so it's not really a problem for me. I've actually only recently given away a 6.4 GB drive that, when I had bought it years ago, had been huge at one time. lololdparts __________________ Find love. Last edited by synkr0nized; 03-19-2010 at 12:47 AM.

03-19-2010, 08:47 AM	#25
Eltargrim Fifty-Talents Haversham Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: FABULOUS Posts: 1,904	Synk, check out DBAN for your drive data security needs. It wipes them clean __________________ <Insert witticism here; get credit; ???; profit!>