Study: 40 percent Of Used Storage Drives Weren’t Wiped

If you decide to donate used computer equipment to a good cause, or otherwise pass it on, don’t assume the hard drive is going to get wiped even if the recipients tell you it will be. That would be the conclusion from a recent study by data-erasure company Blancco Technology Group and data recovery company Ontrack. In a sample of 159 drives purchased on ebay, they found 40 percent contained sensitive information, included such things as scanned passports, data from government workers with security clearances, and internal company memos. The sellers in every case claimed they had wiped the drives clean. There are two common ways to do this process, this post explains. One takes longer than the other, but it’s the only one that really works.