User Guide
Version Number 3.0
Copyright ⌐ 2003, LSOFT TECHNOLOGIES INC. All rights reserved. No part of this documentation may be reproduced in any
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Contents
Standards Used in This Guide ........................................................................................... iv
OV E R V I E W
Deleting Confidential Data ..................................................................................................5
Advanced Data Recovery Systems ...............................................................................5
International Standards in Data Removal ......................................................................6
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Personal Computer Minimum Requirements ......................................................................7
Drive Storage System ....................................................................................................7
Active@ KillDisk Version.....................................................................................................8
What's New in Version 3.0 .............................................................................................8
RUNNING ACTIVE@ KILLDISK
Preparing a DOS-Bootable Floppy Disk..............................................................................9
System Formatting.........................................................................................................9
Copying Active@ KillDisk to a Floppy..........................................................................10
Labeling the Disk .........................................................................................................10
One-Step Method.........................................................................................................10
Modes of Operation ..........................................................................................................10
DOS Interactive Mode ................................................................................................. 11
DOS Command Line Mode...............................................................................................15
Autoexecute Mode ............................................................................................................17
Erasing Data Using Autoexecute .................................................................................17
Erasing Logical Drives (Partitions) ....................................................................................18
Erase Operation Complete ...............................................................................................20
COMMON QUESTIONS
I cannot boot the machine from a floppy. What is wrong? ...........................................21
Which operating systems are supported by Active@ KillDisk? ...................................21
How is the data erased? ..............................................................................................21
ERASING PARAMETERS
Number of Passes ............................................................................................................23
One Pass Zeros or One Pass Random .......................................................................23
User Defined................................................................................................................23
US DoD 5220.22-M .....................................................................................................23
German VSITR ............................................................................................................23
Russian GOST p50739-95 ..........................................................................................23
Gutmann ......................................................................................................................23
Verification ........................................................................................................................23
Retry Attempts.................................................................................................................. 24
Ignore Errors..................................................................................................................... 24
Clear Log File before Start................................................................................................ 24
Skip Confirmation ............................................................................................................. 24
Standards Used The following standards are used to provide more concise documentation:
in This Guide
Table 0-1 User Input
Description Example Action
Bold text within square Press [Enter]. Press the key on the keyboard that
brackets corresponds to the message within square
brackets.
Bold text and operand Press [Ctrl + B] Together, press the combination of keys
within square brackets within the square brackets.
Bold text Click OK. With the mouse pointer, find the icon or
button indicated and left-click that icon.
Letter "i" in the left Information worthy of noting.
i
margin
Exclamation mark in Important information that may cause the
!
the left margin utility to behave incorrectly and may
damage data as a result.
OVERVIEW
1
This chapter gives an overview of Active@ KillDisk application.
Deleting Modern methods of data encryption are deterring unwanted network attackers
Confidential Data from extracting sensitive data from stored database files. Unfortunately,
attackers wishing to retrieve confidential data are becoming more resourceful
by looking into places where data might be stored temporarily. A hard drive on
a local network node, for example, can be a prime target for such a search. One
avenue of attack is the recovery of supposedly-erased data from a discarded
hard disk drive. When deleting confidential data from hard drives or removable
floppies, it is important to extract all traces of the data so that recovery is not
possible.
Most official guidelines around disposing of confidential magnetic data do not
take into account the depth of today's recording densities. The Microsoft DOS
del command merely changes the file name so that the operating system will
not look for the file. The situation with NTFS is similar.
Removal of confidential personal information or company trade secrets in the
past might have used the format command or the DOS fdisk command.
Ordinarily, using these procedures gives users a sense of confidence that the
data has been completely removed.
The format utility actually creates new FAT and ROOT tables, leaving all
previous data on the disk untouched.
fdisk merely cleans the Partition Table (located in the drive's first sector) and
does not touch anything else.
When you use Active@ KillDisk, you can scan drives and view all files on
them - including files that have been deleted using the Microsoft DOS del
command.
Advanced Data Advances in data recovery have been made such that data can be reclaimed in
Recovery Systems many cases from hard drives that have been wiped and disassembled. Security
agencies use advanced applications to find cybercrime-related evidence. Also
there are established industrial spy agencies adopting sophisticated channel
coding techniques such as Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (PRML), a
technique used to reconstruct the data on magnetic disks. Other methods
include the use of magnetic force microscopy and recovery of data based on
patterns in erase bands.
Although there are very sophisticated data recovery systems available at a high
price, data can easily be restored with the help of an off-the-shelf data recovery
utility like Active@ File Recovery (www.file-recovery.net) or Active@
UNERASER (www.uneraser.com), making your erased confidential data quite
accessible.
6 CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW
Using Active@ KillDisk, our powerful and compact utility, all data on your hard
drive or removable floppy drive can be destroyed without the possibility of
future recovery. After using Active@ KillDisk, disposal, recycling, selling or
donating your storage device can be done with peace of mind.
International Active@ KillDisk conforms to four international standards for clearing and
Standards in Data sanitizing data. You can be sure that once you wipe a disk with Active@
Removal KillDisk, sensitive information is destroyed forever.
Active@ KillDisk is a quality security application that destroys data
permanently from any computer that can be started using a DOS floppy disk.
Access to the drive's data is made on the physical level via the Basic
Input-Output Subsystem (BIOS), bypassing the operating system's logical drive
structure organization. Regardless of the operating system, file systems or type
of machine, this utility can destroy all data on all storage devices. It does not
matter which operating systems or file systems are located on the machine, it
can be DOS, Windows 95/98/ME, Windows NT/2000/XP, Linux or Unix for PC.
2 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
This chapter outlines the minimum requirements for PCs using Active@
KillDisk.
Personal IBM PC/AT compatible CPU
╖
Computer Operates with processors as old as Intel 486
Minimum
╖
Requirements 4 Mb of RAM
╖
Video must be EGA or better resolution
╖
Drive Storage 1.44 Mb floppy diskette drive
╖
System Hard Disk Drive type IDE, ATA or SCSI with controllers
╖
O t he r
One blank 3.5-inch or 5.25-inch floppy disk suitable for formatting
╖
Alternately use a Windows 95/98/ME Startup Disk
╖
8 CHAPTER 2: SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Active@ KillDisk The performance of Active@ KillDisk depends on the version of the
Version application, as displayed in the table below:
Table 2-1 Active@ KillDisk
FREE
DEMO Professional
Feature Version Version
S
Securely overwrites and destroys all data on physical
drive or logical partition
Supports IDE / ATA / SCSI drives
Supports Fixed Disks, Floppies, Zip Drives, FlashMedia
drives
Supports large format drives (more than 8GB)
Oupports Command Line mode (can be run with no user
interaction)
E perates from a floppy disk
Erases with one-pass zeros
Erases with one-pass random characters
Urases with user-defined number of passes (up to 99)
GS Department of Defense 5220.22-M compliant
R erman VISTR compliant
Gussian GOST p50739-95 compliant
C utmann method compliant
S ustomized Security Levels
Eupports all detected hard disk drives
Drasing report is created and can be saved as a file
Displays detected drive and partition information
L ata verification performed after erasing is completed
Dightweight installation (only about 1MB)
S isk Viewer allows previewing of any sectors on a drive
cans drives and previews files before erasing on FAT,
FAT32 and NTFS file systems
What's New in
Version 3.0
When the cursor is positioned on the logical drive, pressing [Enter] scans
╖
the drive, allowing you to preview all files and folders. In this way, you can
check one last time - to be certain you have selected the correct drive -
before erasing data permanently.
Scans and previews files in all major file systems (FAT, FAT32, NTFS,
╖
NTFS5)
3 RUNNING ACTIVE@
KILLDISK
This chapter describes how to use the application. The chapter's sections are:
Preparing a DOS-bootable Floppy Disk
╖
Modes of Operation:
╖
DOS Interactive Mode
╖
DOS Command Line Mode
╖
DOS Autoexecute Mode
╖
Preparing a Active@ KillDisk is a powerful utility with a small footprint. It is small enough to
DOS-Bootable operate from a single floppy drive in a Microsoft DOS environment. This can be
Floppy Disk useful in a number of situations. For example, a computer technician who is
assigned to erase the data on PCs with hard drives containing Windows
operating systems or operating systems other than DOS or Windows, can use
a single DOS-bootable floppy to erase all data.
This chapter describes the steps to create a DOS-bootable floppy (a startup
disk) and run the utility. If you have a bootable floppy, skip to the Copying
Active@ KillDisk to a Floppy section, below.
System Formatting To prepare a bootable floppy from MS-DOS, Windows 95/98/ME/XP, put a
blank 3.5-inch floppy in the floppy drive (drive a:) and follow the appropriate
instructions below:
Windows 95/98 MS-DOS or Command Prompt Mode
1 On the screen, type the format command as follows:
FORMAT A: /S
2 Follow on-screen messages until process is complete.
Windows 95/98/ME Operating System
1 Click the Start button and click Settings> Control Panel.
2 From the Control Panel screen, click Add/Remove Programs.
3 In the Add/Remove Programs screen, click the Startup Disk tab.
4 Click Startup Disk... and follow the screen instructions until the process is
complete.
10 CHAPTER 3: RUNNING ACTIVE@ KILLDISK
Windows XP Operating System
1 Click Start. Click My Computer.
2 Right-click A: drive.
3 From the drop-down menu, click Format...
4 Enable the checkbox beside Create an MS-DOS startup disk.
5 Click the Start button and follow the screen instructions until the process is
complete.
Copying Active@ Copy the Active@ KillDisk file (KILLDISK.EXE) to the bootable floppy disk or
KillDisk to a Floppy startup disk in drive a:.
If you don't have the Active@ KillDisk file, download it from
http://www.killdisk.com.
After copying the file onto the floppy disk, remove it from the floppy drive.
Labeling the Disk If you plan to use Active@ KillDisk in Command Line mode, please skip the
next section and read Boot to DOS (Command Line Mode).
Once preparation of the bootable 3.5-inch floppy disk is complete, you are
ready to begin removing data.
One-Step Method Combine all the above steps into one by navigating to our Web site.
Download and run Bootable Floppy Disk Creator for Active@ KillDisk.
Once you have installed Active@ KillDisk on the floppy, you are ready to boot
from the floppy and use the software for disk erasing.
Modes of Active@ KillDisk can be used three ways:
Operation
DOS Interactive Mode
╖
Command Line Mode
╖
Autoexecute Mode
╖
It is wise to label the floppy disk to identify the way you plan to use Active@
KillDisk.
DOS Interactive Mode and Command Line Mode are similar in that you can
control what happens after the utility has started. In Autoexecute Mode,
however, Active@ KillDisk starts immediately upon completion of the
bootstrap startup (depending on the automatic settings).
Modes of Operation 11
DOS Interactive This section describes using the DOS Interactive screens. For "hands-off"
Mode operation, please see the next section, below.
Here are the steps for interactive operation:
1 With the PC power off, insert the Active@ KillDisk floppy disk into drive A:.
2 Start the PC by turning on the power. The screen displays the Microsoft DOS
prompt.
3 At the DOS prompt, run Active@ KillDisk by typing:
KILLDISK.EXE
The Detected Physical Devices screen appears as below:
Figure 3-1 Detected Physical Devices
All system hard drives and floppy drives are displayed in the left pane along
with their system information in the right pane.
4 Change the position cursor using the keyboard [Down] and [Up] arrow keys.
Information in the right pane changes according to the structure of the detected
devices.
Hard drive devices are numbered by the system BIOS. A system with a single
hard drive displays it as number 80h. Subsequent hard drive devices are
numbered consecutively. For example the second device is shown as 81h.
5 Be certain that the drive you are pointing to is the one that you want to erase.
All data is permanently erased with no chance for recovery.
12 CHAPTER 3: RUNNING ACTIVE@ KILLDISK
If there is any doubt about which drive to select, preview the sectors in the
device by pressing [Ctrl + s]. The screen appears, as below:
Figure 3-2 Preview Sector
Scroll up and down using the keyboard arrow keys, [Page Up], [Page Down],
[Home] and [End] navigation keys. Jump to a specific sector using [Ctrl + g].
When you are satisfied with the identification of the device, press [Esc] to exit
this screen.
6 When you have selected the device to erase, move the cursor to that device
and press [F10] on the keyboard. The Configuration screen appears.
Figure 3-3 Configuration Screen
Using the keyboard arrow keys, select the feature that you want to configure.
Press [Enter] to make a change.
To assist with options presented in this screen, please refer to the table on the
following page.
Modes of Operation 13
Table 3-1 Erase Parameters Configuration
Feature Default Options
Erase Method US DoD One pass zeros
5220.22M
One pass random
US DoD 5220.22M
German VSITR
Russian GOST p-50739-95
Gutmann
User Defined Number of Passes
(For descriptions of these options see
ANOTHER PLACE, below.)
Passes 3 If User Defined Number of Passes is
selected in the line above, this number
may be changed. Otherwise this line
displays the standard number of passes
for the selected erase method.
Verification Enabled / 40% Enabled: Utility inspects the work done by
KILLDISK to verify that the attempt was
successful. The percentage shown
indicates how much of the drive is
verified.
Disabled: Verification is not performed
Retry Attempts 5 If the process encounters an IO error, the
number of times the operation repeats
before displaying an error message.
Repeating the operation sometimes helps
to overcome IO problems.
Ignore Errors Disabled Enabled: Each time the read heads
encounter a read-write error, a message
appears that requires confirmation by the
user.
Disabled: Error messages are not
displayed.
Clear Log File before Start Enabled
Skip Confirmation Disabled Next step confirmation screen does not
appear.
The Confirm Action screen appears.
Figure 3-4 Confirm Action
7 This is the final step before removing data from the selected drive for ever.
Once the process has started, you may stop it by pressing the [Esc] key.
14 CHAPTER 3: RUNNING ACTIVE@ KILLDISK
Type ERASE-ALL-DATA and press [Enter]. Progress of the erasing procedure
is monitored in the Disk Erasing screen, similar to the one below:
Figure 3-5 Disk Erasing in Progress
8 If you wish to stop the process for any reason after it has begun, press the
[Esc] key. Please note, however that erased data is not recoverable.
There is nothing more to do until the end of the disk erasing process. The
application operates on its own without user intervention.
If there are any errors, for example due to bad clusters, they are reported on the
Interactive screen. If such a message appears, it is possible to cancel the
operation (by pressing [Esc]), or continue erasing data.
DOS Command Line Mode 15
DOS Command This section describes running Active@ KillDisk in Command Line mode.
Line Mode
Follow these steps:
1 With the PC power off, insert the Active@ KillDisk floppy disk into drive A:
2 Start the PC by turning on the power. The screen displays the Microsoft DOS
prompt.
3 At the DOS prompt, display Active@ KillDisk parameters by typing:
A:\>killdisk -?
A list of parameters is displayed. Explanations of the parameters can be found
in the table on the following page.
4 Key the command and parameters into the DOS screen at the prompt. Here is
an example:
A:\killdisk -eraseallhdds -erasemethod=6 -passes=7
-noconfirmation
In the example above, data on all hard drives is erased in seven passes without
user confirmation.
5 Press [Enter] to complete the command and start the process.
After operation has completed successfully information on how drives have
been erased is displayed on the screen.
16 CHAPTER 3: RUNNING ACTIVE@ KILLDISK
Table 3-2 Command Line Parameters
Defaul
Parameter t Options
no parameter With no parameter, the DOS Interactive screens
appear.
-erasemethod=[0-6] 0 0 - One pass zeros (quick, low security)
1 - One pass random (quick, low security)
2 - US DoD 5220.22-M (slow, high security)
3 - German VSITR (slow, high security)
4 - Russian GOST p50739-95 (slow, high security)
5 - Gutmann (very slow, highest security)
6 - User Defined Number of Passes (random)
-passes=[1 - 99] 1 Number of times the write heads pass over a disk
area to overwrite data. Valid only if erasemethod = 6.
-verification=[1 - 100] 40 After the data erasing process is complete, the utility
reads the disk space to verify that the actions
performed by the write head comply with the chosen
erasemethod (reading 40% of the area by default). It
is a long process. Set the verification to the level that
works for you.
-retryattempts=[1 - 99] 5 When the drive write head encounters an error in the
sector, the utility tries to write in the sector 5 times by
default.
-erasehdd=[80h - 83h] By default, the utility erases the first logical drive
encountered. Use this parameter to direct the
erasing procedure to the correct target.
-ignoreerrors ON By default, the erasing process stops each time a
disk error is encountered. You have the option to
continue erasing or to stop the process and deal with
the error. When this parameter is used, all errors are
ignored.
-clearlog ON When a drive is erased, a log file is kept. By default,
this log is cleared at the start of the erasing process.
The log file is stored in the same folder where the
software is located.
-noconfirmation ON Skip confirmation steps before erasing starts. By
default, confirmation steps appear in command line
mode for each hard drive or floppy as follows:
Are you sure?
-test If you are having difficulty with Active@ KillDisk, use
this parameter to create a hardware info file to be
sent to our technical support specialists.
-eraseallhdds Erase all detected hard disk drives
-help Display this list of parameters.
or
-?
Autoexecute Mode 17
Autoexecute Mode You can start Active@ KillDisk with a DOS auto-executable batch file. Include
the command line containing call of the program and parameters.
Follow these steps:
1 In the Microsoft DOS screen, open a new autoexec.bat file or edit an existing
one with the following command:
A:\>edit autoexec.bat
The Microsoft DOS file edit screen appears.
2 Enter the command line and parameters as needed. Here is an example:
killdisk -erasehdd=80h -erasemethod=6 -passes=1 -ignoreerrors
In the example above, the first detected hard disk is erased in one pass.
Confirmations are encountered and errors are ignored.
3 Save the autoexec.bat file in the root directory of the system floppy disk and
exit the edit utility.
4 Remove the floppy from this floppy drive.
5 The floppy is now ready for automatic data erasing.
Erasing Data Using To erase data using Autoexecute Mode, follow these steps:
Autoex ecute
1 Go to the machine that requires data erasing
2 With the PC power off, insert the Active@ KillDisk Automatic Mode floppy disk
into drive A:
3 Start the PC by turning on the power.
4 The PC indicates booting into DOS. The data erase process begins.
18 CHAPTER 3: RUNNING ACTIVE@ KILLDISK
Erasing Logical In all previous examples in this chapter, the process has removed data from a
Drives (Partitions) physical drive. Using a similar method, you can erase logical disks and
partitions, and even "Unallocated" areas where partitions existed and the area
was damaged, or the area is not visible by the current operating system.
Open the DOS Interactive Mode screen and follow the steps below.
1 The Detected Physical Devices screen appears as below:
Figure 3-6 Detected Physical Devices
All system hard drives and floppy drives are displayed in the left pane along
with their system information in the right pane.
2 Position the cursor over a logical disk or an Unallocated area. A set of options
appears in the lower pane of this window.
3 Press [Ctrl + S] to open Disk Viewer and preview all sectors of this drive
4 When positioned on a logical drive, press [Enter] to scan the drive and preview
files and folders on the drive. This option allows you to thoroughly check the
drive's folders, hidden and visible files and previously deleted files before
erasing data.
Erasing Logical Drives (Partitions) 19
When you press [Enter], an activity bar appears while the drive contents are
scanned. After the scan has completed, the contents of the drive are displayed
similar to the figure below:
Figure 3-7 Scan Results Display
Navigate up and down the displayed list using up and down arrows or Page Up
and Page Down keys. Press [Enter] to open a folder and view the contents.
Similarly, press [Enter] to open Disk Viewer and view the contents of a file.
Press [Esc] when finished viewing to return to the Detected Physical Devices
window.
5 In the Detected Physical Devices window, press [F10] to securely remove data.
20 CHAPTER 3: RUNNING ACTIVE@ KILLDISK
Erase Operation After operation is completed successfully, information on how drives have been
Complete erased is displayed similar to the data below:
------------- Erase Session -----------------------
Active@ KillDisk started at: Thu Feb 20 11:56:51 2003
Target: Floppy (00h) 1.40MB
Erase method: US DoD 5220.22-M Passes:3
Verification:40% (completed successfully)
Time taken: 00:01:26
Total number of erased device(s), partition(s): 1
If the process encountered errors, for example from bad clusters, a summary of
errors would be presented in this report. Use the keyboard arrow keys to scroll
through the report.
Details of this report are saved to a log file located in the same order from which
you started Active@ KillDisk.
4 COMMON QUESTIONS
I cannot boot the There are many possible reasons that you cannot boot from a floppy. Please
machine from a consult this troubleshooting chart:
floppy. What is
wrong?
Table 4-1 Troubleshooting Floppy Disk Problems
Problem Solution
Floppy disk is not bootable With the floppy in drive A:, verify whether or not system files
or damaged. (COMMAND.COM, etc.) are located on floppy. If the disk
directory can be read and system files appear by name, the
disk or some files on the disk may be damaged. On a DOS
or Windows PC, run SCANDISK.EXE to check for
damaged areas on the disk surface. Alternately, prepare
and test another bootable floppy disk.
Machine has boot priority Open the low-level setup screen, usually by pressing [F1]
for Hard Disk Drives, or or [Delete] on the keyboard during PC startup. These setup
another device set higher parameters build structure in the BIOS. Locate the section
than for Floppy Drives. about Boot Device Priority, or similar. This section allows
you to set the search order for types of boot devices. When
the screen opens, a list of boot devices appears. Typical
devices on this list are Hard Drives, CD ROM drives,
Floppy Drives and Network Boot option.
If the floppy device has been disabled, enable it (provided
you have a floppy disk installed). The priority should
indicate that the floppy device is the number one device the
BIOS consults when searching for boot instructions. If
Floppy Drives is at the top of the list, that is usually the
indicator.
Which operating Active@ KillDisk runs in the Microsoft DOS environment. As it can be installed
systems are easily onto a bootable floppy disk, it does not matter which operating system is
supported by installed on the machine hard drive. If you can boot in DOS mode from the boot
Active@ KillDisk? diskette, you can detect and erase any drives independent of the installed
Operating System.
How is the data Active@ KillDisk communicates with the system board Basic Input-Output
er ased? Subsystem (BIOS) functions to access hardware directly. It uses Logical Block
Addressing (LBA) access if necessary to clean FAT32 drives more than 8 Gb in
size. To erase data it overwrites all addressable locations on the drive with a
character or character set defined for a particular method.
22 CHAPTER 4: COMMON QUESTIONS
For example, to conform to US DoD 5220.22-M security standard, it overwrites
locations on the drive three times using the following:
First time with zeros (0x00)
╖
Second time with 0xFF
╖
Third time with random characters
╖
When using User Defined Number of Passes, it overwrites each time with
random characters.
5 ERASING PARAMETERS
This chapter describes the parameters used with various erasing methods.
Number of Passes
One Pass Zeros or When using One Pass Zeros or One Pass Random, the number of passes is
One Pass Random fixed and cannot be changed.
When the write head passes through a sector, it writes only zeros or a series of
random characters.
User Defined For User Defined method, the user can indicate the number of times the write
head passes over each sector. Each overwriting pass is performed with a buffer
containing random characters.
US DoD 5220.22-M The write head passes over each sector three times. The first time with zeros
(0x00), second time with 0xFF and the third time with random characters. Final
pass is to verify random characters by reading.
German VSITR The write head passes over each sector seven times.
Russian GOST The write head passes over each sector five times.
p507 39-95
Gutmann The write head passes over each sector 35 times. For details about this, the
most secure data clearing standard, you can read the original article at the link
below:
Verification After erasing is complete you can direct software to perform verification of the
surface on the drive to be sure that the last overwriting pass was performed
properly and data residing on drive matches data written by the erasing
process.
Because verification is a long process, you can specify a percentage of the
surface to be verified. You can also turn the verification off completely.
24 CHAPTER 5: ERASING PARAMETERS
Retry Attempts If an error is encountered while writing data onto the drive (for example, due to
physical damage on the drive's surface), Active@ KillDisk tries to perform the
operation again. You can specify number of retries to be performed.
Sometimes a damaged sector can be overwritten if the drive is not completely
damaged, after several retries.
Ignore Errors If this option is turned on, error messages will not be displayed while data
erasing or verification is in progress.
While displaying error messages have been ignored, all information about
these errors are written to the KILLDISK.LOG file. They are displayed after the
process is complete in the final Erasing Report.
Clear Log File If this option is turned on, KILLDISK.LOG log file truncates before erasing
before Start starts. After erasing is completed, the log file contains information only about
the last session.
If this option is turned off, KILLDISK.LOG log file will not be truncated and
information about the last erasing session appends to the end of the file.
Skip Confirmation The confirmation step happens when the user types ERASE-ALL-DATA as the
final step before the erasing process starts. If Skip Confirmation is turned on,
the request for confirmation is skipped. This option is typically to be used by
advanced users in order to speed up the process.
Turning off this option (default state) is safer because you have one last chance
to ensure that data from the correct drive location is going to be erased
completely with no possibility of future data recovery.