Acronis Drive Cleanser 6.0 FAQ: how to safely wipe deleted files and delete partitions from your hard disk drive making it unavailable for data recovery tools

What is Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 intended for?

Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 was written specifically to obliterate confidential data from partitions and hard disk drives.

There are algorithms of different complexity and speed offered for data destruction.

Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 includes most known national governmental standards for hard disk data destruction, for example the U.S. Standard, DoD 5220.22-M.

Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 also includes powerful erasing algorithms developed by authoritative experts in computer data security

Who needs Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0?

Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 is intended for anyone responsible for data storage (and destruction!) in corporations, financial and government agencies, small and medium-size businesses, where confidential documents or data are formed and used. The top users of our software are system engineers and information system administrators, and servers and databases maintainers.

Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 will ensure permanent erasure of sensitive data — completely eliminating the possibility of erroneous data recovery.

Why is it insufficient to simply delete files containing confidential data?

Any file system registers a file by its name in the File Allocation Table (FAT) of a partition, while the file data proper are stored in the sectors of a partition (hard disk) forming a chain. Deletion of files by means of an operating system only deletes a filename from the FAT, while the sectors containing the file proper are considered free. Data may be written to the sectors after deleting the file name from the FAT, but the file data remain intact unless randomly overwritten. Deleting a file name in the FAT does not assure that data will ever be written over that files data sectors on the hard drive.

The Windows operating system, for example, allows users to easily recover a deleted file. There are many popular utilities software products that also serve this purpose.

It is more difficult to recover a deleted file in the Linux operating system. Files and data are bound up with greater complexity in Linux's file systems such as Ext2, Ext3, and ReiserFS. But even under Linux, file data is still stored in disk sectors even after the deletion.

Both off-the-shelf and rather inexpensive software, and a simple hardware device may be used to recover files, data, hard disk controller capabilities and even magnetic microscopy.

Why is it insufficient to format or delete partitions containing files with confidential data?

Formatting of a hard disk partition does not affect the data written on the sectors of a hard disk in any way. Formatting just creates the data storage structure on a disk, this is known as a file system. If you just format a hard disk drive partition, only the names of files registered in the File Allocation Table will be destroyed — your confidential data will remain in sectors of the hard disk.

Partitions existing on a disk are described in the Partition Table of the hard disk. Simple deleting a partition only makes the sectors of that partition to be considered unallocated. Files and data structures of the deleted partition remain intact. It is even easier to recover a deleted partition and all the files on it, than after formatting.

What are hard disk wiping algorithms based on?

All algorithms for destruction of data are based on multiple overwrites of data on the hard disk drive sectors, or if from a physical stand point — on multiple switching of recording material over the disk surfaces.

Algorithms used in national governmental standards provide for filling each byte of each hard disk sector with ones, random values, or complimentary values to those written during the previous pass. Wiping implies at multiple passes on the hard disk.

For example, the U.S. national standard offers writing of the following:
First pass — random values;
Second pass — complimentary values to those written during the previous pass;
Third pass — random values;
Fourth pass — writing verification.

Why are more powerful algorithms better than those offered by national standards?

Adoption of new or updated government standards for wiping data takes much more time than development of both software and hardware data recovery tools.

Modern computer hardware and electronics are inexpensive, do not require well-qualified personnel, and allow users to recover hard disk data from barely perceptible traces or repeatedly deleted records. While bureaucrats debate upon new technology and algorithms for data security, individuals and groups will continue to develop new ways to erroneously recover sensitive data.

Therefore the most powerful algorithms of data destruction in Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 offer up to 99 customized passes on a hard disk.

What is the main advantage of Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0?

The main advantage of Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 is that it offers not only national standard algorithms for data destruction, but also much more powerful wiping algorithms developed by authoritative experts in data security.

Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 also allows you to create custom algorithms that will meet and exceed your data security needs and speed requirements.

What operating systems does Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 work under?

The answer to this question may be divided into two parts.

1. The installation program on the CD-ROM may be run from Windows. You may run our installation wizard directly from the CD, or create a bootable diskette.

2. If you create a bootable diskette, Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 does not require any operating system to work with disk functions of your computer's BIOS.

What disk size does Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 support?

As Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 does not actually require an operating system, it will work with disks of any size that support the BIOS of your computer.

Will Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 work under Windows XP?

YES! The Windows XP operating system works with FAT16, FAT32, NTFS hard disk file systems.

Does Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 work with hard disks that have Linux operating system installed?

YES! Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0 works with the most popular Linux OS file systems like Ext2, Swap, and ReiserFS.

Frequently asked questions about Acronis DriveCleanser 6.0