Disk Wiping Recommendations

[Gongalong]

Hi folks,

 

What are you using for wiping PCs?

 

We’ve used DBAN, but that rarely works now, and subsequently the Eraser app within Hiren when DBAN doesn’t work.

 

Anything better out there? (I know the e-waste people are supposed to wipe them, but I don’t trust ‘em for staff machines)

 

Thanks

[Olliedawg]

Look at ShredOS. It's a small bootable linux distro which is purely for wiping data from drives.

 

GitHub - PartialVolume/shredos.x86_64: Shredos Disk Eraser 64 bit for all Intel 64 bit processors as well as processors from AMD and other vendors which make compatible 64 bit chips. ShredOS - Secure disk erasure/wipe

[pete]

For "that's a device holding confidential data that didn't use bitlocker" cases, we use a pillar drill (with the guard down) for mechanical disks/hard-shell SSD. 

 

For laptop/desktop SSDs we use bolt croppers.

[Olliedawg]

6 minutes ago, pete said:

For "that's a device holding confidential data that didn't use bitlocker" cases, we use a pillar drill (with the guard down) for mechanical disks/hard-shell SSD. 

 

For laptop/desktop SSDs we use bolt croppers.

Can't beat good ol physical destruction!

[andy_b]

41 minutes ago, Olliedawg said:

Look at ShredOS. It's a small bootable linux distro which is purely for wiping data from drives.

 

GitHub - PartialVolume/shredos.x86_64: Shredos Disk Eraser 64 bit for all Intel 64 bit processors as well as processors from AMD and other vendors which make compatible 64 bit chips. ShredOS - Secure disk erasure/wipe

+1 for ShredOS, uses nwipe (DBAN fork) - that can wipe multiple drives at once.

 

Used to use an old HP Microserver to wipe 4 at a time.

 

These days just tend to physically destroy the SSD.

[psydii]

Here everything is bitlockered. We do a TPM reset and hand it over to an ICO Registered, ISO 27001, ISO 14001, ISO 9001 and ADISA certified recycler who use guarentees data security through the whole process, and shred any that the software fails to wipe. They provide certificates assuring each step has been completed for each piece of storage handed over.

Not every recycler is robust in asserting there behaviours around data. In my experience when pushed, those that are a bit wish-washy on it, suddenly add £700 to the price and then outsource  that part of the process off to a recycler who does adhere to those standards.

The other thing you could do (if you have a boot/imaging process you can co-opt) is have a boot image that wipes and re-partitions the disk then uses cipher.exe to fill the disk with random data a few times, followed by bitlockering with the "encrypt current data" option enabled.

The trouble is modern drives lie a lot about what data is where, and you have to trust that when the software tells the drive firmware that is being wiped/reset/encrypted that the firmware does some work to execute the intent of the operator against its default behaviour. This is why many top-tier data wiping tools report they failed to wipe a drive, and why many companies that guarantee to wipe data increasingly shred storage rather that recycle it.

Edited October 16, 2025 by psydii

[Fazza]

If it has been encrypted using BitLocker we just delete the partitions as without the bitlocker key it's just a load of junk and for those that are not encrypted we use the free version of Active KillDisk to erase the disk/ssd.

[nicholab]

A lot of SSD manufacturers provide tools like Crucial and Kingston that offer a drive sanitize option.  Kingston is the best as it gives you a screenshot with the serial and a success message.  We are also looking at Blancco software that can do SSDs and HDDs, which offers record keeping to a suitable standard.

[dmj]

shred -v /dev/sdxx

Or pillar drill have been my goto's

 

Shred is built in to most *nixes so you don't need a dedicated OS for this. By default it overwrites 3 times, but you can specify any number you like. you can also target a file, it doesn't need to be an entire disk. 

[mavhc]

In theory your SSD could be storing old data that's not visible to the OS, in practise you're not MI5, so no one cares about your data