Help Best way to securely delete everything?

[deslock]

I'm exchanging my Nexus 7 because it's defective, and I restored to factory settings. Since that took only a couple minutes, it's obvious it wasn't a secure erase... what's the best way to do that?

 

[kadimi]

You may want to flash it with a custom ROM, maybe AOPK, "AOKP custom ROMs provide many customizations and reportedly render better performance compared to stock ROMs."

Here's how to do it:
How to flash the AOKP custom ROM to the Google Nexus 7 tablet

BTW, what do you mean by defective?

 

[seVer]

and what do you mean you restored to factory, but that wasn't a secure erase? the whole point of a reset is to wipe the device back to out-of-box status.

if you want a REAL secure wipe, drop it in a tub of water and then smash the every loving isht out of it. can't access what's destroyed, right? (by the way, that was sarcasm. don't do this unless you plan on just buying another one)

 

[MartinS]

Erase it, fill it with crap (movies, music...) erase again, repeat until paranoia settles.

 

[DC IT]

Sever is correct.
There are ways to recover data from a wiped or fried hard drive so a mere wipe back to factory is not sufficient. But in most cases there is not much risk as it is unlikely that Google or the next owner will bother to recover your data.

It is not prudent to store confidential data on a mobile tablet since it can easily be stolen.
IMO, the N7 should primarily be used as an entertainment gadget.

 

[stridermt2k]

Perform a factory reset.
Reset your tablet to factory settings - Nexus Help

 

[deslock]

and what do you mean you restored to factory, but that wasn't a secure erase? the whole point of a reset is to wipe the device back to out-of-box status.

if you want a REAL secure wipe, drop it in a tub of water and then smash the every loving isht out of it. can't access what's destroyed, right? (by the way, that was sarcasm. don't do this unless you plan on just buying another one)

It's not out-of-box status as all my data is still on it and easily retrievable (even though it's been restored to "factory" settings).

There are different degrees of "secure". I don't need to zero it out 35 times, but I'd rather not just erase it either. Would be nice if there was a built in option for that.

You may want to flash it with a custom ROM, maybe AOPK, "AOKP custom ROMs provide many customizations and reportedly render better performance compared to stock ROMs."

Here's how to do it:
How to flash the AOKP custom ROM to the Google Nexus 7 tablet

BTW, what do you mean by defective?

I rooted my phone (VGN) but wasn't going to bother doing that on the Nexus 7 if I didn't have to. How will that help with a secure erase?

It has the usual issues: flickering screen at low/medium brightness, loose/raised/clicking screen (on the left), and saturated screen after video. Hopefully some of that can be fixed via a patch, but not all of it.

Erase it, fill it with crap (movies, music...) erase again, repeat until paranoia settles.

I had a feeling that was going to be the answer

Perform a factory reset.
Reset your tablet to factory settings - Nexus Help

Oh for Pete's sake. I did that.

Sever is correct.
There are ways to recover data from a wiped or fried hard drive so a mere wipe back to factory is not sufficient. But in most cases there is not much risk as it is unlikely that Google or the next owner will bother to recover your data.

It is not prudent to store confidential data on a mobile tablet since it can easily be stolen.
IMO, the N7 should primarily be used as an entertainment gadget.

My encrypted passwordDB was on it. Given the very strong password and 128-bit AES (~trillion years to brute force), I guess I won't worry about it. Still, I might overwrite the device once

As always, it's convenience vs security/paranoia.

 

[irishbogman]

Mine came with JB 4.1 installed, playing around trying to get the play store free credit, upgraded to 4.1.1
Did a factory reset, its still at 4.1.1
In my opinion a factory reset does not restore it to when it first came out of the box, am I right?

 

[wibbly]

There's a security setting to encrypt all the user data. If you trust that, maybe encrypt all you data and THEN do a factory reset...

 

[Deleted User]

Mine came with JB 4.1 installed, playing around trying to get the play store free credit, upgraded to 4.1.1
Did a factory reset, its still at 4.1.1
In my opinion a factory reset does not restore it to when it first came out of the box, am I right?

A factory reset does not, and never has, modified the operating system on the device. It wipes out all of the user data. That's it.

If you've upgraded, installed a custom OS, whatever - all of that remains. The only thing that gets deleted on a factory reset is user data.

There's a security setting to encrypt all the user data. If you trust that, maybe encrypt all you data and THEN do a factory reset...

I don't think that will help. The encryption option doesn't write anything to blank areas of the partitions, it only encrypts the data that is on them already. So I don't think it will overwrite the data he's looking to have securely erased.

That would have worked if he had done it BEFORE he did a factory reset, though.

 

[wibbly]

The encryption option doesn't write anything to blank areas of the partitions, it only encrypts the data that is on them already. So I don't think it will overwrite the data he's looking to have securely erased.

That would have worked if he had done it BEFORE he did a factory reset, though.

Yes, I was suggesting it on the basis that if there WAS some of the data left hanging about after the factory reset, it would at least be encrypted so harder to do anything with, if it could be extracted. As you say, it has to be first...

 

[deslock]

A factory reset does not, and never has, modified the operating system on the device. It wipes out all of the user data. That's it.

If you've upgraded, installed a custom OS, whatever - all of that remains. The only thing that gets deleted on a factory reset is user data.



I don't think that will help. The encryption option doesn't write anything to blank areas of the partitions, it only encrypts the data that is on them already. So I don't think it will overwrite the data he's looking to have securely erased.

That would have worked if he had done it BEFORE he did a factory reset, though.

I had that encryption enabled as well. The more I think about it, the more I think I'm probably all set.

 

[wibbly]

I had that encryption enabled as well.

Slightly off topic, but once that's done, is the N7 perceptively slower at doing anything?

 

[Deleted User]

I had that encryption enabled as well. The more I think about it, the more I think I'm probably all set.

If you had encryption enabled, you're all set. The data that was wiped would not be useful to anyone who recovered it.

 

[randomhero180]

how do you set encryption to be enabled and do you need it enabled before you start installing anything on your device?

 

[SteveC]

Could a card cleaning app along the lines of Forever Gone sufficiently overwrite everything?