Seagate Tools Erase Track Zero

1. Seagate Tools Erase Track Zero Turn Mower
2. Seagate Tools Erase Track Zero Gravity
3. Seagate Tools Erase Track Zero Turn Mowers
4. Seatools Erase Track Zero
5. Seagate Tools Erase Track Zero
6. Seagate Hdd Tools

Okay, this is another one that annoys me: The claim, the myth that certain three letter agencies can recover data from erased or zero filled hard drives. The claim that those can magically ‘read’ and reconstruct data from ‘latent magnetic residue’ (I am not making this up, others did) using special machines and whatnot.

Writing zero to hard drive is one of the popular data sanitization methods nowadays. This method is also known as the Single Overwrite method and called zero-fill erase or zero-fill. It is a process of replacing existing data on hard drive with zeros, so as to prevent most hardware-based and all software-based recovery methods from extracting. Get one of these great, bootable partitioning tools. Paragon is the best option, but the Gparted live CD is good, too. Boot it up and delete and create partitions to your heart's content. Windows is not good at removing non-MS partitions, so a tool like this will do the job and be very useful in the future.

Wobbly heads

Idea is that the positioning from read/write heads is not exact. so new data (the zeros) may be written slightly off-track compared to the original data that can thus be recovered. My common sense tells me that IF exact head positioning is so difficult, then reading exactly those latent tracks is very difficult. And that IF head positioning is so difficult then there’s a chance that indeed some of the previous data may survive while other parts are actually overwritten. So at best you’d have partial data without the context of a for example a file system. You’d have binary blobs at best.

Now, assume a specific area was overwritten with new data several times as data was deleted or modified and rewritten by the same wobbly read/write heads. And finally the zero fill. Now results will be even more confusing as we’d have several layers of imperfectly overwritten data.

Zeros and ones

By the way, modern hard drives may depend to a degree on error correction when reading data. Data reads may be imperfect, but this imperfection is detected and corrected using ECC error correction. Each sector is ‘guarded’ by an ECC checksum that is computed as data is written, and data read at a later time is checked against that checksum and if needed corrected. Using ECC we can detect exactly which bits are off, the ones that were supposed to be zeros and vice versa. These ECC codes will not be available when we’re reading the latent magnetic data so we read (again) uncorrected fragmented tiny binary blobs at best.

Anyway I don’t have a science degree and will not claim that I know how hard drives work at that level, but these guys do and have examined the claims: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221160815_Overwriting_Hard_Drive_Data_The_Great_Wiping_Controversy.

Let’s jump right to the conclusion:

So, if I zero fill my drive, no data can be recovered, right? WRONG!

Hah! You didn’t see this coming I bet! What you are correct about is that data can not be recovered from zero-filled LBA space. No one can, not you, not me, not the CIA.

All zero filling tools that I know of can only write (their zeros) to LBA space. LBA space is the space on a hard drive an OS, a tool can address to write to or read from. As far as the OS is concerned, LBA space is all the space that exists on a hard drive.

But that does not necessarily mean LBA space covers all space that exists on a hard drive. You may have heard of HPA (host protected area) or DCO (device configuration overlay). These are areas on a hard drive that exist outside LBA space. Using ATA commands a ‘wiper’ could add these areas to LBA space. There’s also plenty of tools that can do that for you.

So, if taken notice of, HPA and DCO can be wiped. However, there may still be space lurking on the hard drive, that contains user data but exists outside LBA space. Modern drives may reserve space for caching purposes for example. Seagates refer to this as ‘Media Cache’. This is low level information obtained from a 8 TB Seagate drive:

User Partition
LBAs 000000000000-0000756080F9
PBAs 000000000000-000076893477
System Partition
LBAs 000000000000-00000013497F
PBAs 000000000000-000000146F3F
Media Cache Partition
LBAs 000074702556-0000756080F9
PBAs 0000759486D0-000076893477
Spare pool
PBAs: 00007578F548-00007586BDF5 RST Available: 8000 SCT Available: EF
Spare pool (Multi-IOEDC Region)
PBAs: 00007687B32C-0000768872C1 RST Available: 400 SCT Available: 1A

The Media Cache partition is not inside LBA space. It is not a partition that will pop up in Windows Disk Management! Even if we completely zero fill the drive, potentially 60 GB of recently accessed data remains untouched in the Media Cache! This data can probably be recovered by a capable data recovery lab.

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The only way to wipe this space is using the ATA Enhanced Secure Erase command.

Need to write zeros to Seagate hard drive

Write zero is a method of formatting a hard disk whereby the formatter overwrites the disk contents with zeros. It is also called zero fill erase or zero-fill. As the data is manipulated at the most basic level, this method is considered as low-level format.

You may demand to write zeros to Seagate hard drive for the following reasons:

• Remove a stubborn virus. If there is a virus on your Seagate hard drive that can’t be eliminated by antivirus software, you can zero fill the drive.
• Fix a corrupted drive. If CHKDSK fails to fix bad sectors on Seagate hard drive, you may try writing zeros to it as a last resort.
• Erase confidential information. If you are going to recycle your Seagate hard drive or give it to others, you must wipe the drive to avoid information leakage.
• Reuse old hard drive. If you have cloned Seagate HDD to SSD or moved to a new computer, you can erase the old hard drive and use it as a storage device.

Then, how to write zeros to Seagate hard drive? There are two methods available:

Zero fill Seagate hard drive by a full format

In Windows Vista and later versions, the format command writes zeros to the whole disk when a full format is performed. Learn how to run a full format on your Seagate hard drive below:

1. Press Win + E keys to open File Explorer.

2. Right-click on the Seagate hard drive and choose Format.

3. In the pop-up window, choose another file system or keep the default one. UNCHECK the box before Quick Format and click Start.

4. You will receive a warning of data loss. Click OK to start writing zeros to Seagate hard drive.

Tip: The full format takes twice as long as the quick format, because it not only removes files from the specified drive but also scan the drive for bad sectors. Wait patiently for the process to be finished.

Wipe Seagate hard drive clean via a freeware

Seagate Tools Erase Track Zero Gravity

To zero fill Seagate hard drive, you can also rely on a professional disk eraser. Here I’d like to recommend the best free disk wipe tool – AOMEI Backupper Standard. You can benefit a lot from its “Disk Wipe” feature:

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• It enables you to wipe an entire disk, a selected partition, or unallocated space and make your data unrecoverable.
• It can help you wipe not only HDDs but also USB drives and SD cards. Besides, it supports all branded disks, including Seagate, Samsung, SanDisk and WD, etc.
• It allows you to create a bootable USB to wipe a hard drive without loading Windows.
• It is compatible with all editions of Windows 10, 8/8.1, 7, Vista and XP.

Follow the steps below to wipe Seagate hard drive clean via AOMEI Backupper:

Step 1. Download, install, and open AOMEI Backupper. Click Tools and choose Disk Wipe.

Step 2. On the Wiping Type page, choose Wipe Disk and click Next.

Step 3. Select the Seagate hard drive that you want to wipe and click Next. If it is the system disk, the operation will be performed in reboot mode.

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Step 4. On the Wiping Method page, choose Fill sectors with Zero. Then click Start to begin the zero filling process.

Tip: To enjoy more advanced wiping methods like Fill sectors with random data,DoD 5220.22-M, and Gutmann, you need to upgrade to AOMEI Backupper Professional.

Seagate Tools Erase Track Zero

Verdict

Seagate Hdd Tools

You have learned two efficient ways to write zeros to Seagate hard drive in Windows 10/8/7. You can choose to perform a full format or run disk wipe with AOMEI Backupper as you wish. Actually, AOMEI Backupper is more than a professional disk eraser. It is also a free SSD migration tool that enables you to transfer data from HDD to SSD. Why not give it a shot?