# can the FBI etc read a disk drive that has been properly overwritten once? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 11, 2007, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-fbi-etc-read-a-disk-drive-that-has-been-properly-overwritten-once/399579 "2007-04-11T01:11:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2007, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-fbi-etc-read-a-disk-drive-that-has-been-properly-overwritten-once/399579/21 "2007-04-12T23:21:42Z")
I actually work in a consulting company’s forensics practice, and with reasonably available tools, you just can’t get anything after it’s been overwritten once. I suppose if you wanted to, you could find some outfit with some kind of gizmo that could possibly reconstruct it, but like \*\* Msmith537 \*\* says, it would just take too long and be too expensive to be practical. After all, we charge upwards of $250/hr, and I can’t imagine that an outfit capable of doing something like this would charge anywhere near that low. Generally speaking if it’s overwritten, it’s gone. One pass should be fine. ---
**Author:** ![Jayrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Jayrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayrot)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2007, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-fbi-etc-read-a-disk-drive-that-has-been-properly-overwritten-once/399579/22 "2007-04-12T23:42:55Z")
[QUOTE=asterion] Personally, I use 35. Only for sensitive data, becausing overwriting 100+ gigs 35 times is a very long time indeed. Otherwise, 7-9 is enough for when I’m just letting Eraser wipe “empty” space. [/QUOTE] Personally I use 160. Can anyone beat that? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-fbi-etc-read-a-disk-drive-that-has-been-properly-overwritten-once/399579.md?page=1)