Frequently Asked Questions

Using Hardwipe

How do I enable/disable Explorer menus?

Run Hardwipe as a standalone application from the Windows Start menu, and select the appropriate "Explorer Integration" option in the settings window. Restart Windows Explorer for the changes to take effect.

Can I wipe/clean multiple drives?

Yes. You can select multiple drives and they will be queued up. If you are trying to wipe several USB flash drives, it may be quicker to run multiple instances of Hardwipe and wipe them simultaneously.

How do I wipe my C (primary) drive?

Hardwipe can't do this because it runs from within the OS (and it won't allow you to try). You need a bootable utility, such as DBAN, to do this. Hardwipe may support this in the future, but currently it focuses on the convenience offered by being an OS based utility. You can, however, clean the free (unused) space on your primary drive using Hardwipe.

Is it safe to wipe my D drive?

I have two drive volumes, but only one physical disk. Is is safe to wipe the D drive?

Hardwipe will wipe the D volume only (the C volume will be left untouched). See here for further information.

How do I wipe my NAS box?

Hardwipe can't do this over the network interface because it doesn't provide the low level access needed to wipe at the volume or device level. It is possible to clean the free drive space, however, and the best you can do is to delete all files yourself using Explorer and then run the "Clean Free Space" command.

If your NAS has a USB connection, you could attempt to plug it directly into you computer and then perform a full drive wipe. However, beware that NAS boxes tend to use a proprietary file system format and a low level drive wipe operation would erase this.

Drive is full after interruption to "Clean Space"?

In order to clean free drive space, Hardwipe overwrites unused space by generating large "dummy" files. Normally these files are removed at the end of the cleaning operation. However, if the operation is interrupted unexpectedly, i.e. by pulling out a USB connection, these files may not get deleted. In this case, you must delete them yourself using the Windows file explorer.

During cleaning, a directory will be created on the root of the drive with the name "hwipe_xxxxxxxx" (where "x" denotes a random character). Simply delete this directory and its contents to remove all dummy files left by Hardwipe.

How do I uninstall?

You can easily uninstall Hardwipe from the "Programs" section of the Windows Control Panel.

How do I undelete data after wiping it with Hardwipe?

You can't. It's gone. You need to take care to wipe only data that you really want destroyed. It cannot be recovered later. That is the purpose of wiping it with a tool such as Hardwipe.

General Questions

What's the best wiping scheme to use?

The GOST R 50739-95 scheme performs two overwrite passes and represents a good overall balance between speed and security. The single pass Random Data scheme is faster and sufficient to prevent data recovery with modern hard-disks (HDDs)*. For solid state drives, including USB thumb drives, it is suggested that nothing less than a two pass scheme (i.e. GOST R 50739-95) be used.

There is probably little to be gained in performing the 35 pass Gutmann scheme with HDDs, but a high number of overwrite passes may offer improved security when used with SSDs. Performing 35 passes may be time consuming, however, and the Schneier scheme, which performs 7 passes, may be considered as a compromise. See here for more information.

*Source: NIST 800-88 (2006).

How does Hardwipe perform drive wiping?

Hardwipe performs a low level overwrite of the drive volume (it will be necessary to re-format the drive afterwards). Where a single drive has multiple partitions, overwriting at the volume level has the advantage of allowing volumes to be wiped individually. Although Hardwipe doesn't need a volume to be pre-formatted, it does require that Windows assign it a drive letter before it can see it. It is planned that Hardwipe will offer both volume and device level wiping in the future.

How does Hardwipe clean free drive space?

Free space cleaning is performed at the file system level. Hardwipe creates a number of large dummy files on the drive until it is completely full (it does not delete any existing data). As the free space on the drive gets less, smaller files are created until Hardwipe can no longer create even a zero sized file. Once the drive is completely full, all dummy files are removed.

Can data sanitization be guaranteed with SSDs?

The short answer is no, at least not at the electronics level, but it is possible to destroy most data with a complete drive overwrite. A longer answer is...

The use of overwriting tools, such as Hardwipe, to delete individual files on SSD devices (including USB thumb drives) will be sufficient to thwart commonly available undelete software utilities, although it is probable that files wiped individually in this way will be recoverable if the device is opened and its chips extracted and analysed. A full drive overwrite using a two pass sanitization scheme (or more) can be expected to destroy most of the data on the device, but should not be considered to be universally reliable*. It is possible that a proportion of device space will be recoverable at the chip level, and the amount recoverable will typically depend upon the device itself. Further information is available in this white paper.

*Source: Michael Wei, Laura Grupp, Frederick E. Spada, and Steven Swanson of the University of California, Reliably Erasing Data from Flash-Based Solid State Drives.

What happens if there is a verification error?

Verification failures will be shown in the audit log. Additionally, the result of the sanitization operation will be shown on the main window as "Partial Success". A high number of errors will result in the operation terminating. This failure threshold is configurable from the Options Window.

What happens if there is a disk I/O error?

Hardwipe will attempt to skip over errors and continue writing. Disk I/O failures will be shown in the audit log. This feature is new and considered experimental at the moment. A high number of errors will result in the operation terminating. This failure threshold is configurable from the Options Window.

Can Hardwipe call the ATA "ERASE UNIT" command?

No, not currently. The ATA "SECURE ERASE UNIT" command can only be performed over SATA, and this generally restricts its use to internal drives only. It is not applicable to the USB mass storage device class (i.e. removable drives). This means that it would have limited usefulness in an application that runs from within the OS. Future bootable versions of Hardwipe may implement this.

Several utilities exist to call the "ERASE UNIT" command on a drive, including Secure Erase for Windows, and hdparm on Linux. Readers should note, however, that "ERASE UNIT" is not universally implemented by device manufactures. Further information can be found here.

Is Hardwipe a 32 or 64 bit application?

Hardwipe is fully compatible with both 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows. It was designed from the outset for 64 bit systems, but will be shipped in 32 bit form while 32 bit versions of Windows are still common.

Are versions available for other platforms?

Hardwipe is currently available for Windows only, but was designed from the outset to be fully cross-platform. Future versions may be available for other platforms.