What are some free utilities for securely wiping data from a floppy disk? [closed]
I use dban for mass wiping of disks, it supports all the major overwrite standards and has very good hardware support. However, modern research seems to indicate that a single zero pass wipe is sufficient for data destruction. In that case, you might as well just use a linux system and issue the following command:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/fda
This will overwrite the floppy with all zeroes. Change the zero to urandom for a pass of random characters.
Perhaps a bit more destructive then you are expecting, and completely worthless if you want to donate them. But I simply rip them open and then run the diskette through a cross-cut shredder. You can always follow that up by running shredded bits under bulk tape eraser.
I usually use shred to wipe data. I think it's pretty reliable...
If there is a lot of them, how about a good rubbing with a Neodymium magnet?
Who would you donate them to? I can't remember using a floppy in the last 8 years, seriously. How many do you have? If there isn't a ton of them, crush them with your hand for stress relief...