WipeDrive Can Take the Hard Drive Data Away

By Vincent A. Randazzese
CRN, Aug 2003

White-box builders selling refurbished computers that previously held personal information, such as credit card numbers, banking data and financial, medical records, and other hard drive data, should invest in WhiteCanyon's WipeDrive. The software is specifically designed to erase any and all hard drive data previously stored on a hard drive.

Formatting hard drive data on a PC, whether a low-level format or fdisk format, does not totally erase hard drive data, according to CRN Test Center engineers. Many times operating system files, program files and personal data are not erased, leaving the previous owner or business institution vulnerable to an invasion of privacy. Just because a file is sent to the recycle bin does not mean it has been erased.

Microsoft's operating systems frequently create and retain temporary files that usually go undetected, and as these hard drive data files begin to pile up over prolonged use, computer efficiency also takes a hit.

CRN engineers formatted a 20 GB hard drive installed in a Hewlett-Packard OmniBook. To use the software, the CD must be inserted and the notebook must be restarted. The software does not work in the operating system, only in a DOS prompt.

Once the system is rebooted, the menu screen appears with several different action options. CRN engineers chose to format the hard drive.

Once the format action is chosen, the program asks several times if this is exactly what the user wants to do. The software then asks how many times to format the drive; CRN engineers chose three formats.

After formatting is completed, a verification box pops up to alert the user that the work is done. As the last step, CRN engineers did a search for some.tmp files in a DOS prompt, and all searches came up empty.

WhiteCanyon has a professional license for $99.95 that enables a technician to wipe up to 100 hard drives an unlimited amount of times. In addition, WhiteCanyon has enterprise licensing options for organizations with larger implementation needs. These options are available directly through its resellers.