How can I wipe clean a Compact Flash Card (1 Viewer)

[devon.birder]

I am including four Compact Flash Cards with the sale of my Canon 350D but I want to make sure that none of the deleted images can be recovered. I downloaded Digital Photo Recovery and whilst the card was clean this software recovered 98 deleted images. I then downloaded File Shredder and put the EOS Digital folder in to be shredded. This included the DCIM file and the 172CANON file. When I tried to shred these files I got the message "Some files can't shred because it's in use". I then ran DRR again and it still recovered 98 deleted images. Could anybody please let me know how I can ensure images cannot be recovered. The images are only of family, birds and views etc but I do want them permanently deleted. Thanks. Roger

 

[Cristian Mihai]

There is no FORMAT option on your camera?

 

[devon.birder]

There is no FORMAT option on your camera?

There is a Format option on the camera. If that will do the trick then I will try it right away. Thanks. Roger

 

[devon.birder]

I am afraid it is not as simple as that Christian. I re-formatted the card and then ran Digital Photo Recovery. The 98 images can still be recovered. Thanks anyway. Roger

 

[Mono]

Try this http://www.gaijin.at/en/dlwipedisk.php

 

[Ashley beolens]

Fill the card up again with pictures of a black piece of card. Then any recovered images should just be black?

 

[Matt_RTH]

Grab sdelete from Microsoft. Very reliable option. If you have a newer computer with a bunch of crapware on it, it may have such a utility. Sdelete will wipe blank space, files, etc.

 

[draycotebirding]

Fill the card up again with pictures of a black piece of card. Then any recovered images should just be black?

I don't think it's quite that simple. I have recovered cards with photo's from as much as 7 years ago despite overwriting them.

Regards

John

 

[devon.birder]

Try this http://www.gaijin.at/en/dlwipedisk.php

I have checked this out and downloaded wipedisk but it is RAR file and I have never heard of that before and you need software to open it.
Possible it would have been better not to delete all the images from the cards before using File Shredder and also Mutilate File Wiper neither of which worked for me.
Yes I could fill up the cards again by taking photos of a blank card but you can buy used 16GB cards and I am sure that the sellers do not use that method.
When I bought a used 400D camera last year it came with a compact flash card and I was not able to recover any images from it although it had been used so I know that it can be done. Roger

 

[Kentbloke]

I don't think it's quite that simple. I have recovered cards with photo's from as much as 7 years ago despite overwriting them.

Regards

John

Ashley is sort of right, the best (least worst) way of deleting a flash card is to fill it with garbage and erase it using something like "Eraser" - several times - until the original files are unreadable

 

[devon.birder]

Ashley is sort of right, the best (least worst) way of deleting a flash card is to fill it with garbage and erase it using something like "Eraser" - several times - until the original files are unreadable

I downloaded Eraser but how on earth to you get it to do anything?. Roger

 

[Kentbloke]

Connect the card to a reader and it should show up on "My Computer" - right click on it and select 'erase' (assuming you've installed it correctly)'. As I say, fill the card up with big files (movies for example) then erase and repeat until the desired result is achieved.

The alternative is to sell the camera but hold back the cards...

 

[Ashley beolens]

Ashley is sort of right, the best (least worst) way of deleting a flash card is to fill it with garbage and erase it using something like "Eraser" - several times - until the original files are unreadable

It was certainly the old school way of making sure a harddrive was wiped of all data, creat som erandom file that was the size of the drive save and delete a few times and nothing should be recoverable.

But that was when I were a lad! or rather started in IT 16 years ago, recovery software may have imporved since then, never felt the need to clear things down that much.

 

[Mono]

File shredders will do what it says on the tin, shred "overwrite" the file, but any previously deleted files done with out shredding may be recoverable. What you need is a program that overwrites the whole disk. The one I pointed you at does that.

Rar is a file compression format and is becoming as common as zip. 7 Zip is a free program that will handle both and lots of other compression formats http://www.7-zip.org/.

If you want to try another freebie disk wiper that comes as an exe then try here http://www.diskwipe.org/download.php

 

[Andrew Rowlands]

Hi Roger, if you already have CCleaner installed, you could try that. There's a choice of passes, 1-35, try 1 or 3 first then test with your recovery software.

Regards,

Andy.

 

[devon.birder]

Hi Guys. Thanks for all your suggestions and advice. I refilled the CFC with files and then downloaded diskwipe as recommended by Mono and did a slow wipe. I then tried to recover deleted images and thankfully Digital Image Recovery could not recover any. I then reformatted the cards. Problem solved. Regards Roger