Killdisk manual

DoD Licensing assumes no extra cost per erase! Version 14 released on April 30, ! KillDisk Industrial Desktop brings a complete and affordable industrial-grade disk sanitation hardware solution to the consumer market. Highly customizable for any context, supporting U. DoD erasure and fully automated operation, this system is a must-have for any organization with strong disk erasure requirements. Licensing policy assumes no extra cost per disk erase!

Supports U. Supports fully automated operations. Licensing policy assumes no extra costs per disk erase! Version 5. High performance parallel erasing of multiple disks at the same time.

Disk Wipe unused clusters sanitation on live volumes for most file systems. Displays and monitors health status for all disks based on a S. Disk sectors and volumes can be inspected on a low level in advanced Disk Viewer.

Controls erase process based on S. Customizable Disk Batches provide similar operations over group of disks.

Disk Cloning from different sources - optional step after disk erase is complete. Event Journal for all past operations and Journal Export to external databases. Supports Command Line Mode operations and Scripting. Active KillDisk gives you a fast, easy way to delete your files and folders for good if you're getting rid of your hard drive.

While it's not as advanced as some other permanent deletion programs, it offers enough bonus features to keep you interested. The professional, welcoming look earns it a few extra points. Simply deleting files, or even formatting the disk, does nothing to stop a determined snoop. This program, a powerful and free! Ian Harac, PCWorld. We have been using this to satisfy data wiping requirements at the university before disposing of old equipment.

It is very simple to use so we are able to have workstudies wiping the drives. It does take several hours on a 3 pass wipe, but I don't think anything can be done about the time due to the nature of what the software has to do. It would be nice if there were audible or more obvious visual prompts that a wipe has completed, so the workstudy can see at a glance without looking at the small status window. When the scan completes, sub-folders will appear in the System Local Devices list and the folders and files in the selected drive will appear in the Folders and Files tab.

Available files and folders will appear with a colored icon. Deleted files and folders will appear with a gray icon. After the Wipe or Kill operation is complete, information about the wipe or erase session will be displayed in the Session Log. When the write head passes through a sector, it writes only zeros or a series of random characters. US DoD The first time with zeros 0x00 , second time with 0xFF and the third time with random characters. There is one final pass to verify random characters by reading.

The first time with 0xFF, the second time with zeros 0x00 , and the third time with random characters. Gutmann most secure method: The write head passes over each sector 35 times overwriting data with different patterns. For more details about the most secure data erasing standard, you can read the original article at the link. User Defined: You indicate the number of times the write head passes over each sector. Verification: In order to verify the wipe method, you will need to select the Verification check box and set the amount of area the utility will read.

Because verification is a long process, you can specify a percentage of the surface to be verified. To wipe or erase without verification, clear this check box. The wiping process clears data residue from an unoccupied space on the hard drive and does not affect installed applications or existing data.

This process contains three options:. You can choose to run only one or two of these options in order to make the process faster. If you want a thorough wiping of unused space, then include all of the three options.

Retry Attempts: To specify the number of retries to do when an error is encountered, enter the number in Retry Attempts. Ignore Errors: To hide error messages while data wiping, erasing or verification is in progress, select the Ignore Errors check box. To show all error messages during wiping, erasing or verification, clear the Ignore Errors check box.

All errors are written to the session log in either case. To append this session's information to the existing session log, clear the Clear Log File before Start check box. Skip Confirmation: The confirmation dialog box is the final step before either erasing or wiping data. To bypass this dialog box, select the Skip Confirmation check box. To include this safety step, clear the Skip Confirmation check box.

It is safer to run Active KillDisk with this check box cleared default state. General parameters allow you to turn features on or off or change default setting before you erase or wipe data from an unoccupied space. You can also change the look and feel of the application and its logging options. To view and change settings, press the F2 key, or click the Settings toolbar button. If you erase sector zero and fill it with zeros or random characters, you might find that you cannot use the hard drive after erasing the data.

For this reason KillDisk is programmed to create an empty partition table and write a typical MBR in sector zero. This process is otherwise known as disk initialization. If by a chance the errors have occurred or the erasing has been stopped, status will be FAILED and displayed in red color. You can leave the KillDisk working and set it to turn the computer off when erasing is completed. A log file will be saved and can be reviewed later.

Skip Disk Erase Confirmation: The confirmation screen is the final step before erasing data. If Skip Confirmation is turned on, this final safety request will not be shown. This option is typically used with caution by advanced users in order to speed up the process.

You may want to use this as a safety measure to ensure that data from the correct drive location is going to be erased completely with no possibility of future data recovery. Ignore Disk Write Errors bad sectors : If this option is turned on, error messages will not be displayed while data erasing or verification is in progress. LOG file. These messages will be displayed in the final Erasing report after the process has been completed.

Stop Process after Writing Errors: If by any chance writing errors appear during the wipe or deletion, you can adjust after how many errors would you like the KillDisk to terminate the process. For detailed instructions, see the Active KillDisk Documentation. Data Recovery.