ClearSummersDay
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I have some flash drives to sell. Is there anyway the buyer/recipient could recover deleted data on them, even if you reformat the drives ?
I have some flash drives to sell - data recovery concerns
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ssc456
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I would say it is possible but highly unlikely.
My best advice, maybe not the most practical but i "believe" if you filled the drive up again with something that your not bothered about like a couple of films or even just the same file over and over again, then delete it all from the flash drive i think if they tried to recover anything they would just see the last things that were on there.
I believe all data is recoverable until it is overwritten again.
However this is not something i would ever be worried about as it is highly unlikely.
My best advice, maybe not the most practical but i "believe" if you filled the drive up again with something that your not bothered about like a couple of films or even just the same file over and over again, then delete it all from the flash drive i think if they tried to recover anything they would just see the last things that were on there.
I believe all data is recoverable until it is overwritten again.
However this is not something i would ever be worried about as it is highly unlikely.
If you're talking thumb drives, I'd never sell mine to any one. When they go bad or they no longer are useful, they meet their fate at the end of a 2lb framing hammer.
If you're talking SSD then install them in a stand alone system and boot up a linux distro. Do a low level format.
If you're talking SSD then install them in a stand alone system and boot up a linux distro. Do a low level format.
ClearSummersDay
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How about HDDs?
Thank you for your replies.
Thank you for your replies.
With the right tools, you can get data off of a drive that's been formatted over a few times. For $80 I've bought a program called R-Studio to do data recovery for a few friends after their drives got wiped and you'd be amazed at what was found.
Like Seti, I never sell my flash drives. They are so cheap now that it's not even worth my time to securely delete my data to sell the extras. Hard drives are a different case (and much easier to get data from). In that case, I'd run a program called dirk's boot and nuke (commonly referred to as DBAN) to ensure the data is unrecoverable.
Like Seti, I never sell my flash drives. They are so cheap now that it's not even worth my time to securely delete my data to sell the extras. Hard drives are a different case (and much easier to get data from). In that case, I'd run a program called dirk's boot and nuke (commonly referred to as DBAN) to ensure the data is unrecoverable.
1computeroutlet
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Overwrite with garbage 5 times over and the answer would be a definite no!
ClearSummersDay
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Yikes. I know now what I'm to do. Well, thanks for the replies.
Its possible and people would need to spend a lot of money to get that data. Some may not have the money or need to just buy a flash drive and want to get the data that use to be stored on there and that got deleted. unless you happen to sell it to data recovery specialists who do data recovery for a living and that got the equipment to do it .... know what i mean.. but if you put stuff on there that you dont need and then delete it and do this a couple of times then you have a good chance they cnt get the data.
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