OpenVMS FAQ – DoD Security Disk Erasure

Sometimes refered to as disk, tape, or media declassification, as formatting, as pattern erasure, or occasionally by the generic reference of data remanence. Various references to the US Deparment of Defence (DoD) or NCSC “Rainbow Books” documentation are also seen in this context.

While this erasure task might initially appear quite easy, basic characteristics of the storage media and of the device error recovery and bad block handling can make this effort far more difficult than it might initially appear.