Anyone heard of Active@killdisk? it rendered my hdd unusable

EvilHamster

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Jun 9, 2012
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I recently downloaded killdisk 9 by active, a software for "proper" deleting.
Once i wiped the HDD, (the unused space, yes i checked multiple times), windows no longer recognises the hard drive.

When I use things like Pandora, I can still see the files i had on it. But unless I want to buy an other hdd, or borrow i guess, and then recover for hours, I dont see a way around it.

What kind of a software is that? I found it on very trustworthy sites, and was usually ranked very high in the top deleting tools etc, so i thought it was a normal software. Is it a buggy mess? A maleware? or did I get a rare bug ?

Anyone used this software?

Cheers.
 
Solution
Who would want a program like that, considering you can just format any drive anyways.
Anyone who is disposing of a hard disk - that's the target audience. Every reference that I found to the program emphasised that it is for use when you are disposing of a disk and do not want your data to be read. Formatting a disk leaves all the data intact - it just reinitializes a few filesystem structures. It is trivial to extract data from a formatted disk. Programs of this sort will write a number of patterns to every byte on the disk, ensuring that data cannot be recovered. The disk can then be disposed of without worrying about sensitive data.

Edit: I understand what you are saying that there should be an option that just lets you...

EvilHamster

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Jun 9, 2012
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Are you seriously suggesting to me that the hdd is now unusable unless i want to delete everything on it?

Who would want a program like that, considering you can just format any drive anyways.

Besides, it has wipe and kill, and i certanly used wipe. Its own scan recognises the files on it. I am pretty sure that the files are still there and should be somehow useable...


Edit: At http://killdisk.com/wiping.htm
it clearly says: "Wiping the logical drive's deleted data does not delete existing files and folders". I distinctively used that feature... I checked it a few times that i clicked the right thing etc.


Edit:edit:

After once again using the program and scanning the drive (the other recovery prgrams that i have dont recognize the drive), it actually does say that there is 300gm of used space and 150~ or free (as it should). Also when klicking on delted folders it says delted folder and on the once i never delted, it just says folder. It is clear that the so called program has actually just bugged. (what a crappy program, sry for the word).

Anyways, anyone know of a way to fix a corrupted drive? Not much must be corrupted, prob only like the master file or something. I really dont know that much about it sry.
 

ex_bubblehead

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If you ran a wipe without first running CHKDSK to ensure that the filesystem was in a consistent state, then you can expect to have problems. At this point you will need a good recovery software, such as recuva ( https://www.piriform.com/recuva ), which has a free demo. You will need an additional drive on which to place any recovered data. If that doesn't work then you will need to engage a professional recovery service (not inexpensive)
 

Ijack

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Who would want a program like that, considering you can just format any drive anyways.
Anyone who is disposing of a hard disk - that's the target audience. Every reference that I found to the program emphasised that it is for use when you are disposing of a disk and do not want your data to be read. Formatting a disk leaves all the data intact - it just reinitializes a few filesystem structures. It is trivial to extract data from a formatted disk. Programs of this sort will write a number of patterns to every byte on the disk, ensuring that data cannot be recovered. The disk can then be disposed of without worrying about sensitive data.

Edit: I understand what you are saying that there should be an option that just lets you wipe unused areas of the disk leaving the rest intact. But, as pointed out above, this is a process that can go wrong. It isn't wise to ever use a utility that acts on a hard disk in this way (repartitioning software is another that comes to mind) unless you have a backup of any important data on the disk. Things can go wrong - particularly if the power fails during an operation. In fact, it is never wise to have only one copy of any important data. Disks fail; all disks fail eventually. So, even if you don't take risks by running programs of this nature that make wholesale changes to the filesystem, you must keep copies of important data. That's why people take regular backups.
 
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EvilHamster

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Jun 9, 2012
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@ Ijack

While I do agree with you that one should make regular backups, and i do do it for the most important ones, one can not make terabytes of backups. Not for home use. And Hdds get big. I dont even remember all the stuff I had on it.

Anyways, while again, one should be careful etc. etc. a software that clearly advertises the fact that you can use it to just wipe an hdd should not have such a big gleering bug. At the very least, it should write a warning before u use it like, "u feel lucky punk?" (sry could not resist D)

I dont want to be ungrateful, and I am indeed very thankful that you guys are trying to help. But I frankly find this kind of a thing irresponsible. We are not talking about a buggy game. Thats one thing, noone likes it but whatever, its a game. Here someone could loose something really important and if the guys behind that software are unable to code a "wipe" feature, then they most certanly should not :/.


Also, on a sidenote. You can make full formation, which I thought changed everything to zeros... might be wrong though.

Be that as it may.

Anyways guys, again thanks for the help. I am just frustrated, and take it a bit out on the forum :). I hope you can understand.

I will try to recover or fix it somehow... I will try it for a few days, might be back on this forum though. For now i guess this thread is closed though.

Thanks for the help (to both ofc.)
Cheers.
 

sloshnmosh

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Nov 5, 2014
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Might I offer some assistance, download a copy of linux knoppix. (free and open source) it will do anything you desire. It has forensic recovery tools such as testdisk and photorec. It also has a program called "dd" which can clone a hardrive even over the internet. dd can also wipe the unused free space or overwrite all data with random data as well as zero out the drive. dd is also capable of creating an iso from folders as well as creating bootable usb drives and 100 other things. you can also rebuild the bootsector with linux. It is well documented read this page just on dd and youll understand how to clone,convert, wipe or fix your boot sector: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/learn-the-dd-command-362506/
in the repository in linux knoppix you can also download even more intensive recovery tools like foremost and you can also download nwipe for automated wiping or if you want to REALLY wipe a drive download the program called "wipe" and enter this into the command terminal: sudo wipe -S r -Z -r / This will overwrite your drive starting at the root file system 34 times with random chars and the final wipe with zeros. Read the webpage i linked to, it goes into some detail about how to zero out just the boot sector and then you can rebuild it and have all your folders back. I used to swear by Active Killdisk but since I switched to linux it serves no purpose.