Is Formatting a Hard Drive Good Enough For Data Security

You need to take care of and watch your data from cradle to the grave, and that doesn’t mean you are done with it once it hits the electronics storage closet. You need to destroy that data. Does that mean formatting? Is formatting a hard drive good enough for data security? Find out from Sadoff!

Why Your Old Devices Leave You at Risk for a Data Breach

How Can You Keep Your Data Safe?

From individuals to major corporations, everyone has data that needs to be kept safe. Whether it’s something simple like passwords or bank account info or something as complex as entire lists of clients along with identifying information. You don’t want to leave yourself exposed and you don’t want to leave your clients exposed. There are two troublesome assumptions that we have to combat. One is that data breaches only happen when “hackers” break into your system. The other is that a formatted hard drive destroys all the data. Let’s take an in-depth look at both of these.

Are there hackers out there that are breaking into systems using back doors, password hacks, and OS vulnerabilities? Yes, there are, but even an inexperienced bad-actor can simply steal data right off a hard drive. Even if you had password security, virus/malware protection, and yes, even if you have formatted your drive.

Read More: Where to Recycle a Computer in Wisconsin

Why is a Formatted Drive Vulnerable to Data Theft?

Formatting a drive looks like deleting all your data, doesn’t it? When you format a drive you get all your space back, no files appear on the drive, and you get all those warnings about losing your data during the process. But assuming the data is gone forever is a misunderstanding of how basic high-level drive formatting works.

How Does Formatting a Hard Drive Work?

In most cases formatting a drive only marks all the data as junk. When the drive goes to write new data, it will freely write over any of these places marked as junk. Imagine taking a piece of paper with words written on it. Instead of erasing it all so you can start over, you are erasing words as your write your new words. That’s what working with a formatted hard drive is like. This means that anything that hasn’t been erased and overwritten yet can still be recovered with even basic data restoring utilities.

How is Wiping a Hard Drive Different Then Formatting?

A drive wipe not only marks all the data as junk or free space, but it also overwrites all the data with either all 1s, all 0s, or all random data. This is what we do at Sadoff E-Recycling & Data Destruction. It takes longer, requires special equipment and software, and is 100% reliable.

Even then, Sadoff doesn’t stop there. We take the drive and physically destroy it after it’s wiped leaving little hope for anyone to recover data or even usable parts off those drives ever again. Of course, after that, we then recycle the materials in the drive entirely.

Data Destruction Services in Wisconsin and Nebraska

If you are looking for data destruction services in either Wisconsin or Nebraska, then you can rely on Sadoff E-Recycling & Data Destruction to get the job done. We have locations all through both states with Wisconsin locations in Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Green Bay, Fond du Lac, and Oshkosh. Our Nebraska locations include one in Lincoln and a business-to-business location in La Vista. Reach out to us for a quote today!

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Categorized in: Data Security