220-1002 · Question #214
A technician must remove data from the human resources computers. The technician plans to reuse the drives in the computers. Which of the following data destruction methods should the technician…
The correct answer is D. Low-level format. A low-level format (also called a zero-fill or secure erase) writes zeros or random data to every sector of the drive, effectively destroying all existing data while leaving the drive fully functional and ready for reuse. This is the appropriate choice when the drive must be…
Question
A technician must remove data from the human resources computers. The technician plans to reuse the drives in the computers. Which of the following data destruction methods should the technician perform to ensure the data is removed completely?
Options
- ADegaussing
- BStandard format
- COverwrite
- DLow-level format
How the community answered
(30 responses)- A7% (2)
- B3% (1)
- D90% (27)
Explanation
A low-level format (also called a zero-fill or secure erase) writes zeros or random data to every sector of the drive, effectively destroying all existing data while leaving the drive fully functional and ready for reuse. This is the appropriate choice when the drive must be sanitized but kept operational. Degaussing (A) destroys the magnetic fields on the platters, rendering an HDD permanently unusable - it cannot be reused. A standard format (B) only removes file system pointers; the actual data remains on the disk and is easily recoverable with forensic tools. Overwrite (C) is similar in concept but a low-level format is the more thorough and formally recognized method in CompTIA A+ contexts for complete data sanitization on reusable drives.
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