Active@ KillDisk

Active@ KillDisk is a powerful utility that will:

  • Wipe confidential data from an unused space on your hard drive
  • Erase data from partitions or from an entire hard disk
  • Destroy data permanently

Wiping the logical drive's deleted data does not delete existing files and folders. It processes all unoccupied drive space so that recovery of the previously deleted files becomes impossible. Installed applications and existing data are not touched by this process. Active@ KillDisk wipes unused data residue from file slack space, unused sectors, and unused space in MFT records or system records.

When you erase data with Active@ KillDisk, you destroy data permanently, conforming to more then 20 International Standards or your own custom settings.

Wiping drive space or erasing data can take a long time, so perform these operations when you are prepared to wait. For example, these operations may be run overnight.

Using Active@ KillDisk

To run Active@ KillDisk:

  • Select a required drive for erasing in the Local System Devices list on the main View
  • From the Active@ Boot Disk shell click KillDisk > Start App... After initializing, the Active@ KillDisk workspace appears with all the options for advanced wipe and erase:

Wiping Data

  • To clear data residue from unused sectors:
    1. Click Wipe Volume toolbar button and specify the settings:
Note: Read here more about Wiping Methods
  1. Choose one of the methods from the Erase method list
  2. Click Start
  3. The Confirm Action dialog box appears. Click Yes
  4. The process will be initialized with the progress bar:
  5. To stop the process at any time click Stop button near the progress bar. Pause works for pause.
  6. After successful process of wiping the dialog screen with certificate appears:
  7. Press F2 for saving the certificate

Erasing Data

  1. Select Kill Storage and choose a method from the Erase method list and other erasing parameters
    Note: Read here more about Wiping Methods
  2. For Certificate Options button opens the options' dialog:
    Specify the certificate options and click Apply
  3. Click Start
  4. The Confirm Action dialog box will appear:
  5. This is the final step before removing data from the selected drive forever. Type ERASE-ALL-DATA in the text box and press ENTER.
  6. The process will start and the progress bar will appear:
  7. To stop the process at any time press ESC. You can also end the process by clicking on Stop button.
After the Wipe or Kill operation is completed, information about the wipe/erase session is displayed in the dialog window as a certificate:

Erase/Wipe Options

Verification
In order to verify the erase method, you will need to select the Verification check box and set the amount of area that the utility will read in order to verify the erase method. Because verification is a long process, you can specify a percentage of the surface to be verified. To or erase without verification, clear this check box.
Wipe Volume (settings)
This parameter appears only when you are wiping data from unused space on the hard drive. The wiping process clears data residue from unoccupied space on the hard drive and does not affect installed applications or existing data. This process contains three options:
  • Unused space
  • Wipe Metadata/System area
  • Slack space in file clusters

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 options.

General Options

General parameters allow you to turn features on or off or change default settings 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 Preferences… from Tools menu.

Prepare MBR:
Because of the BIOS restrictions of some manufacturers, a hard disk device that is larger than 300 MB must have an MBR (Master Boot Record) in sector zero. 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
Write Fingerprint to the first sector
If fingerprint has been written to the disk’s first sector, next time you boot from this disk, you will see a disk erase status. If by any chance the errors have occurred or the erasing has been stopped, status will be FAILED and displayed in red color.
Ignore Errors (Lock, Read, Write)
If this option is turned on, error messages will not be displayed while data erasing or verification is in progress. All information about errors will be written to the KILLDISK.LOG file. These messages will be displayed in the final Erasing report after the process has been completed