In the past I worked on few file / data recovery and secure hard drive wiping projects. Before throwing away your old servers, laptop and other storage media, make sure to securely wipe it, try the recovery tools to retrieve data and work from there. Using encryption on your storage media is recommended. Instead, I’ll focus in this post on testing recovery and secure shredding options.
These are good free and licensed tools. Here is the list of tool I worked in the past and got recommendations from fellows. My recommended list is highlighted in orange.
Bundle Tools:
These two products are .ISO images which contain tens of free / open source tools including the once to recover deleted files and securely wipe hard drives.
File Recovery Tools:
3. Kroll Ontrack http://www.krollontrack.com/software/free-downloads/
Secure Wiping Tools:
6. Secure Erase http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/Secure-Erase.html
9. Ubuntu Live CD http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15037/use-an-ubuntu-live-cd-to-securely-wipe-your-pcs-hard-drive/
Few Reference Articles on This topic: