A company wants to ensure confidential data from storage media is sanitized in such a way that the drive cannot be reused. Which of the following method should the technician use?

Shredding is a physical destruction method that mechanically destroys the storage media into small fragments, making it impossible to recover any data and ensuring the drive cannot be reused. This is the appropriate sanitization method when both complete data destruction and permanent decommissioning of the media are required. It satisfies the highest level of data sanitization standards, such as NIST SP 800-88, for media that must not be reused.

Wiping overwrites data with patterns but leaves the physical drive intact and fully functional, meaning the drive can still be reused after the process.

Low-level formatting reinitializes the drive's sectors and tracks but does not permanently destroy the media or prevent reuse; data may even be recoverable with specialized tools.

Repartitioning only modifies the partition table and does not sanitize or destroy the underlying data, leaving the drive fully operational and data potentially recoverable.

Overwriting replaces existing data with new data patterns but preserves the physical integrity of the drive, allowing it to be reused and potentially leaving remnant data recoverable on some media types.