A technician is upgrading hard drives on several workstations however the office would like to convert the old SATA drives into external drives for additional storage. Which of the following would…

The correct answer is B. Low-level format. A low-level format (also called a zero-fill or overwrite format) writes zeros or random data patterns to every sector on the drive, making the original data unrecoverable. This sanitizes PII while leaving the drive fully functional for reuse. A quick format (A) only marks the…

Hardware

Question

A technician is upgrading hard drives on several workstations however the office would like to convert the old SATA drives into external drives for additional storage. Which of the following would be the BEST method of ensuring the drives do not contain any PII prior to reusing the drives?

Options

AQuick format
BLow-level format
CDegauss the drive
DConvert to a new file system

How the community answered

(53 responses)

A
2% (1)
B
91% (48)
C
6% (3)
D
2% (1)

Explanation

A low-level format (also called a zero-fill or overwrite format) writes zeros or random data patterns to every sector on the drive, making the original data unrecoverable. This sanitizes PII while leaving the drive fully functional for reuse. A quick format (A) only marks the space as available without erasing actual data, leaving PII recoverable with basic tools. Degaussing (C) uses a powerful magnetic field to destroy data but also renders the drive permanently unusable - defeating the goal of reuse. Converting to a new file system (D) does not overwrite existing data and leaves PII accessible.

Topics

#drive sanitization#PII removal#low-level format#SATA drives

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