From: cwedgwood@cybernet.co.nz (Chris Wedgwood)
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 94 04:26:09 PST
To: nobody@nately.UCSD.EDU
Subject: Re: Need program pointers
Message-ID: <m0rC4bV-000SnlC@mserve>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


storm@marlin.ssnet.com wrote:

_______________________________________________________________________


        I presently use Xtree Gold. It has a DoD and 6 pass Wash Disk

        feature for writing over usused areas of a disk/drive. So far I

        have been unsucessfull at recovering any data after Wash Disk

        with Norton Utilities or PC Tools.

        If there is a weakness in Wash Disk I'd like to hear about it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Actually XtreeGold doesn't wipe disks very well. It simply creates a
file in (in root) as big as there is free space on the disk. This is
fine provided the file have rubbish in it - but with XTG its all
blank.... wash you disks then do and undelete from root and you will
find a (usually large) file. Look at it - its all blank....

Because the data is all blank (zeros) an anomalie search would produce
probably ALL of the data that was there originally.....

I have a program (written by me) that writes pseudo-random mess to
the disk for a specified number of times. I am also working on another
program which clears any data that remians in the last clusters of a
file (i.e. past the EOF point). DOS 7 will do this automoatically I'm 
told (haven't lood and the beta is too messy to bother with).

Chris

P.S. Sorry for extra spaces in the quoting... my comm prrogram is 
somewhat broken....