An eraser is a software program or hardware device used to completely erase the contents of a hard drive. Simply formatting a drive leaves the possibility of recovering much of the information on it. An eraser overwrites every single byte on the hard drive, ensuring all data is erased completely. Hard drive shredding is the most advanced option, destroying all data tags on the hard drive.
In computers, an eraser is a term used to describe a software program or hardware device intended to completely erase the contents of a hard drive. Using an eraser is the only real way to ensure that data is removed from a hard drive, as simply formatting the drive leaves the possibility of recovering much of the information on it. There are different levels of security to a eraser, with the simplest doing more than just formatting but still leaving some ability to reconstruct bits of data, and the most advanced destroying every bit of data on the drive.
To understand why an eraser is important, it can help to understand how hard drives store information and what happens when a computer is asked to delete a file. Files are stored in bits on the drive; when the user opens a file, he checks where that file is stored and reads it. Over time, these files become fragmented and spread across the hard drive, but the hard drive can still find them and completely rebuild the file. Empty space on your hard drive is marked empty so your computer knows it can insert new files or let existing files spread over those chunks of data.
When a file is deleted, it is first placed in a temporary container on your computer, such as the trash or trash. At this point, any user can simply open the trash and find the file and drag it back out to reopen. Many people, once they empty the recycle bin, think that those files are permanently deleted. In reality, all that has happened is that the computer has moved those chunks of data from saying they contained information to saying they were empty and could be overwritten.
The trick is that those chunks won’t necessarily be overwritten unless you add lots of other files to your computer. This means that an advanced user can simply change how the computer sees them and the information will reappear. In fact, even if many new files are added to your computer, it is very likely that parts of the original files will remain. A dedicated individual could reconstruct large amounts of data, such as pieces of personal email, password or billing information. For this reason, it is crucial to use an eraser when deleting a hard drive that may contain sensitive information.
An eraser basically takes all those blocks of data and says they are empty. It then randomly goes through and writes information to every single byte on the hard drive, making sure it overwrites anything that might be there. A standard format for erasers is to pass and write a 1 to each byte, then pass and write a 0 to each byte. After this is done, all data is likely to be erased completely.
A hardware eraser does the same thing as a software eraser, but without the need for a computer. This way, a person can take a hard drive, plug it into eraser, and it will automatically wipe all data off it. This can be ideal for organizations with many hard drives that need to be wiped. For people who want to be absolutely sure that their data is gone, there is one more option: hard drive shredding. This is the process of actually taking the data tags off the hard drive and destroying them, and sometimes incinerating them further, ensuring that no data can survive.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
