Acronis DriveCleanser User’s Guide Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2005. All rights reserved. Linux is a registered trademark owned by Linus Torvalds. Windows is a registered trademark owned by Microsoft Corporation. All other mentioned trademarks can be registered trademarks of their respective owners. Distribution of materials of this Guide both in original and/or edited form in published form (book) is forbidden unless prior special written permission from the author is obtained. THIS DOCUMENTATION IS PROVIDED «AS IS».
END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT BY ACCEPTING, YOU (ORIGINAL PURCHASER) INDICATE YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO ACCEPT THE PRODUCT UNDER THESE TERMS, YOU CAN CHOOSE NOT TO ACCEPT BY SELECTING "I decline..." AND NOT INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE. Acronis DriveCleanser (the software) is Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2005. All rights are reserved. The ORIGINAL PURCHASER is granted a LICENSE to use the software only, subject to the following restrictions and limitations. 1.
Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 4 CHAPTER 1. INSTALLING ACRONIS DRIVECLEANSER AND GETTING STARTED8 1.1 ACRONIS DRIVECLEANSER SYSTEM PACKAGE .................................... 8 1.2 INSTALLATION ...................................................................................... 8 1.3 REPAIRING/UPGRADING ACRONIS DRIVECLEANSER ........................... 9 1.4 REMOVING THE SOFTWARE .................................................................. 9 1.5 USER INTERFACE ....................................
Introduction About Acronis DriveCleanser Getting rid of an old PC, upgrading to a new hard drive, returning a leased computer, or redeploying a PC within your company? It is truly imperative to completely destroy all data from the old hard disk. Acronis DriveCleanser guarantees the complete destruction of data on selected partitions and/or entire disks with extremely simple Windows XPstyle interface and straight forward actions.
The following real-life passage illustrations this idea: Jack V., a computer consultant from Brighton, bought a used notebook computer for $400.00 at the clearance sale of a bankrupt Internet company. It was clear that the hard disk drive contained data about the Internet. This data included social security numbers and salary levels of the company’s forty-six employees, plus pay-roll records, strategic company plans, confidential board of directors minutes, and other internal documents.
Guaranteed destruction of confidential information: standards The Acronis DriveCleanser application offers the guaranteed destruction of confidential information on hard magnetic disks with the help of special algorithms. Acronis DriveCleanser algorithms guarantee compliance with most known national standards: (1) American: U.S. Standard, DoD 5220.22-M; (2) American: NAVSO P-5239-26 (RLL); (3) American: NAVSO P-5239-26 (MFM); (4) German: VSITR; (5) Russian: GOST P50739-95.
Technical support Users who have legally purchased and registered their copy of Acronis Disk Director Suite will receive free technical support from Acronis. If you have installation or working problems that you can’t solve by yourself using this manual and the readme.txt file, email the technical support team. You will need to provide the serial number of your Acronis Disk Director Suite copy bundled with the program. Before you do this, you will have to register your copy at: http://www.acronis.
Chapter 1. Installing Acronis DriveCleanser and Getting Started 1.1 Acronis DriveCleanser system package Acronis DriveCleanser system package includes: • An installation CD, • This guide, • License agreement, • Registration card, • Advertising materials. 1.2 Installation To install the Acronis DriveCleanser: 1. Insert the Acronis DriveCleanser installation CD into CD-ROM drive and start the installation procedure. 2. Carefully follow the installation program instructions on the screen. 3.
After installation of Acronis DriveCleanser is completed, you should restart your computer. 1.3 Repairing/Upgrading Acronis DriveCleanser In order to upgrade or repair your software, start the DriveCleanser installation program again. It will determine that DriveCleanser was already installed on your computer and will ask you if you want to restore (update) the program or completely remove it from disk. 1.
possible, by setting switches to the necessary position or choosing a value from a list, or marking the necessary partitions or disks for work. The necessary position (or condition) of the switch is selected (or set) with a mouse click or by pressing keys. Each dialog contains detailed text comments describing its purpose and the purpose of a list (or switch) located on it. There are also text comments for each element of the list (possible switch conditions). There is no Help button on Wizard pages.
Chapter 2. Wiping Hard Disks with Acronis DriveCleanser Working with Acronis DriveCleanser starts with the welcome screen. The screen informs you about the basic features of the software; they are: 1. Wiping selected partitions of a hard disk (disks) with one of the predefined wiping algorithms; 2. Creating and using custom wiping algorithms. The Acronis DriveCleanser welcome window All actions on hard disks are performed on the basis of scripts created during the dialogue with the user.
The following window will contain the list of hard disks connected to your computer, and their partitions with main parameters (disk capacities and partition sizes, file systems and labels). The list of computer's hard disks (with partitions) Next you will need to select the partitions on hard disks to be designated for data destruction. Mouse-click the rectangle representing the hard disk partition. The red cross will appear in the top right corner of the rectangle.
In the Post-wiping actions window you may choose what to do with partition that is the subject of data destruction. Acronis DriveCleanser offers you three opportunities: • Leave partition as is – that is just to destroy data according to the algorithm which you will select later; • Delete partition – to destroy data and remove partition; • Format – to destroy data and format partition (default).
2.1 Using predefined wiping algorithms Now you need to select one of the predefined wiping algorithms from the list in the Algorithm selection window. The list of predefined wiping algorithms The next window represents the created script for wiping the hard disk partitions. The window of the hard disk wiping script The Acronis DriveCleanser software is now ready to perform the wiping procedure.
Click the Proceed button to execute the script for wiping the hard disk partitions. After pressing Proceed DriveCleanser takes care of everything automatically. To complete the execution of all processes, DriveCleanser will reboot your system after you have pressed the Proceed button. Upon completion of the data destruction execution, you will receive a message reporting the successful completion of the disk wiping procedure.
The algorithms described above offer different variants for data destruction. Thus, the picture you may see on a partition and/or a disk depends on the selected data destruction algorithm.
2.2 Creating custom algorithms of data destruction Acronis DriveCleanser software gives you an opportunity to create your own algorithms for wiping hard disks. In spite of the fact that the software includes algorithms of all classes, you may choose your own algorithms. 2.2.1 Creating custom algorithms To create a custom algorithm of hard disk wiping, select and mouse-click the «Custom…» line from the drop-down list in the Algorithm selection window.
As an example let’s create a simple custom algorithm similar to the American standard. As you may remember, the American standard assumes three passes for a hard disk during which different symbols are written to it, and one more pass for verification – i.e. 4 passes in total. The window with number of passes of the custom algorithm Let us remind you that the predefined wiping algorithms perform from 1 (fast algorithm, the Russian standard) up to 35 passes (Peter Gutmann algorithm).
2.2.2 Algorithm definition: template The Algorithm definition window shows you a template of the future algorithm: the list contains as many elements, including the defined algorithm at the previous stage.
Thus you may include the following values in algorithm: • Any hexadecimal value 1 – 512 bytes long; • Random hexadecimal values 1 – 512 bytes long; • Hexadecimal values, complementary to those written to hard disk during the previous pass. The Algorithm definition window offers you the template for the algorithm only. you should define what exactly the software should write to disk to destroy the confidential data according to your algorithm. To do this, mouse-click the line representing pass #1.
You will see the window that allows you to define the pattern to be written to disk (hexadecimal value). The wiping pass adjustment window for definition of patterns to be written In this figure the switch is set to Write a value position by default, the hexadecimal value 0x00 is entered into the field. Let us explain the meaning of window control elements.
The American national standard provides the writing of random values to each byte of each disk sector during the first pass, so set the switch to Write a random value position and to enter 1 into field. The input of a random 1 byte value as the pattern for writing Click the Next button to continue. You will be taken to the algorithm definition window again and will see that the former record (1 – write – 00) was replaced by 1 – write – random value, 1 byte.
To define the next pass select the second line of the list and click the Next button. You will see the already familiar window, but this time there will be more switch positions available: two additional positions will be available for selection: • Previous step complementary value, • Verify.
You will be taken to the algorithm definition window again. In this window the 2-nd record looked like this before: 2 – write – 00, and it was replaced by: 2 – write – previous step complementary value. The 2-nd pass of the custom algorithm is defined Following the U.S. data destruction standard specification, define third and forth data overwriting passes. In the same way you can create any data destruction algorithm matching your security requirements.
2.2.3 Saving custom algorithm to file In the next Saving custom algorithm window you will be able to save the algorithm you have created. This may be useful if you are going to use this algorithm in future.
In order do save your algorithm you should define the algorithm filename and the path in the Select file field or click the Browse button to locate an existing file on the disk. You should also enter the name and a brief description of your algorithm. The algorithm file name and description window Each custom algorithm is stored in a separate file with its own name. If you try to write a new algorithm to an already existing file its contents will be erased.
As all passes of your algorithm are defined and the algorithm is saved to file. Clicking the Next button, you will see the window with the generated wiping script based on your custom algorithm. The script of data destruction, based on the custom algorithm By clicking the Proceed button you will execute the generated script.
2.2.4 Loading algorithm from file In the Algorithm selection window select the «Load from file…» line from the drop-down list.
Appendix A. algorithms Hard Disk Wiping Information removed from a hard disk drive by non-secure means (for example, by simple Windows delete) can easily be recovered. Utilizing specialized equipment, one may also be able to recover even repeatedly overwritten information. Therefore the problem of guaranteed data wiping is vital as never before. The guaranteed wiping of information from magnetic media (e.g.
types of hard disks. This knowledge speaks to the necessity of complex multipass algorithms to guarantee information wiping. The detailed theory of guaranteed information wiping is described in an article of Peter Gutmann, please see: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html. A.2 Algorithms used by Acronis DriveCleanser The table below briefly describes information wiping algorithms used by Acronis DriveCleanser.
