KillDisk Thecus User Manual
KillDisk Systems — User's Manual
Contents
Legal statement......................................................................................................... 4
KillDisk overview......................................................................................................5
Erasing confidential data...................................................................................................................................... 5
International standards in data removal............................................................................................................... 6
Security hardware................................................................................................................................................. 6
Advanced data recovery systems......................................................................................................................... 6
KillDisk station overview.........................................................................................7
What's in the box?.............................................................................................................................................. 11
Utility software and external tools.....................................................................................................................12
Menu and navigation.......................................................................................................................................... 12
Boot Menu.......................................................................................................................................................... 14
| Contents | 2
Getting started with KillDisk................................................................................ 15
KillDisk installation and distribution................................................................................................................. 15
Navigating through the application.................................................................................................................... 15
Disk Explorer view.............................................................................................................................................17
Disk Bays view.......................................................................................................................................17
Disk Bays tree view............................................................................................................................... 18
Local Disks tree view.............................................................................................................................19
Property views.................................................................................................................................................... 20
Using KillDisk......................................................................................................... 23
Processing options and features......................................................................................................................... 23
Disk erase options...................................................................................................................................23
Disk examination options....................................................................................................................... 23
Disk copy options................................................................................................................................... 24
Error handling......................................................................................................................................... 24
XML reports............................................................................................................................................25
Examine disks physical integrity........................................................................................................................26
Disk erasure........................................................................................................................................................ 27
Processing summary........................................................................................................................................... 29
Reports, Certificates and Labels.........................................................................................................................30
Erase certificate.......................................................................................................................................30
Reports.....................................................................................................................................................31
Erase labels............................................................................................................................................. 32
Preferences...............................................................................................................37
General preferences............................................................................................................................................ 37
Disk erase preferences........................................................................................................................................39
Disk examination preferences............................................................................................................................ 41
Certificate preferences........................................................................................................................................ 42
Error handling preferences................................................................................................................................. 44
Erase labels preferences......................................................................................................................................46
KillDisk station preferences............................................................................................................................... 47
Advanced tools........................................................................................................ 48
File Browser........................................................................................................................................................48
Hexadecimal Viewer...........................................................................................................................................49
SMART Monitor.................................................................................................................................................51
Troubleshooting, Backup and System Recovery................................................. 53
Hardware diagnostic file.....................................................................................................................................53
System Recovery - Reset to Factory Settings....................................................................................................53
System Recovery - Reinstallation with a bootable disk.................................................................................... 54
Application log........................................................................................................ 55
Appendix.................................................................................................................. 56
Glossary...............................................................................................................................................................56
Erase methods..................................................................................................................................................... 57
File name tags.....................................................................................................................................................59
| Contents | 3
Legal statement
Copyright © 2016, LSOFT TECHNOLOGIES INC. All rights reserved. No part of this documentation may be
reproduced in any form or by any means or used to make any derivative work (such as translation, transformation, or
adaptation) without written permission from LSOFT TECHNOLOGIES INC.
LSOFT TECHNOLOGIES INC. reserves the right to revise this documentation and to make changes in content from
time to time without obligation on the part of LSOFT TECHNOLOGIES INC. to provide notification of such revision
or change.
LSOFT TECHNOLOGIES INC. provides this documentation without warranty of any kind, either implied or
expressed, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.
LSOFT may make improvements or changes in the product(s) and/or the program(s) described in this documentation
at any time.
All technical data and computer software is commercial in nature and developed solely at private expense. As
the User, or Installer/Administrator of this software, you agree not to remove or deface any portion of any legend
provided on any licensed program or documentation contained in, or delivered to you in conjunction with, this User
Guide.
| Legal statement | 4
Active@ KillDisk, the Active@ KillDisk logo, KillDisk, KillDisk for Industrial Systems, KillDisk Desktop and
Erasers Software are trademarks of LSOFT TECHNOLOGIES INC.
LSOFT.NET logo is a trademark of LSOFT TECHNOLOGIES INC.
Other brand and product names may be registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders.
KillDisk overview
KillDisk is a powerful software that delivers the following main features:
• Erase data on the entire hard disk drive surface, supports parallel erasing up to 5 disks;
• Destroy data permanently with a choice of dozens of international disk sanitizing standards;
• Sanitize external disks (USB drives, external HDD/SSD) connected to USB 2.0, USB 3.0 and eSATA ports;
• Examine disk integrity and overall stability, disk verification and detect bad sectors;
• Auto-erase mode sanitizes disks and prints certificates without of any user interaction;
• Hot-swap operations are fully supported, erase could be auto-initiated upon HDD plug-in;
• Complete system control from LCD panel with push button navigation;
• Additional peripheral devices and monitor could be also connected for a GUI interface and convenient system
control;
• Visual indication of current actions on LCD panel and LED lights for disk processes;
• Browse file systems on disk volumes and inspect particular sectors Hex Viewer on a low level;
• Issue customizable certificates and detailed reports for disk erase and examination;
• Print different types of labels to be attached to hard disks after erase completion;
• Provides enhanced information about disks and their attributes including S.M.A.R.T. monitoring;
• Network accessible - Reports and Certificates may be stored on a network share, network printer compatible and
access to built-in internet browser.
• and more...
| KillDisk overview | 5
KillDisk maintains the highest standards in disk erasure, and with that, provides extensive documentation options for
its' operations through Reports, printable Erase certificate on page 30 and Erase labels on page 32.
KillDisk Desktop
KillDisk Desktop is the complete hardware disk erase solution - a workstation that is ready and configured to erase
drives right out of the box. Without the need for additional peripherals, KillDisk Desktop come configured with
everything you need to examine and erase HDD's, SSD's, USB's and any other attached memory storage devices,
with printer and internet support for documentation and reporting. Designed specifically to be ready out of the box,
KillDisk Desktop is the best KillDisk hardware solution on the market.
Erasing confidential data
Modern methods of data encryption are deterring unwanted network attackers from extracting sensitive data from
stored database files. Attackers who want 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 data from residual data on a discarded hard disk
drive. When deleting confidential data from hard drives, removable floppies or USB devices, 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, nor the methods used by the operating system when removing data. For example, the Windows
DELETE 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 give users a sense of confidence that the
data has been completely removed.
When using the FORMAT command, Windows displays a message like this:
Important:
Formatting a disk removes all information from the disk.
The FORMAT utility actually creates new FAT and ROOT tables, leaving all previous data on the disk untouched.
Moreover, an image of the replaced FAT and ROOT tables are stored, so that the UNFORMAT command can be
used to restore them.
As well, FDISK merely cleans the Partition Table (located in the drive's first sector) and does not touch anything else.
International standards in data removal
KillDisk for Industrial Systems conforms to four international standards for clearing and sanitizing data. You can be
sure that once you erase a disk with KillDisk for Windows, sensitive information is destroyed forever.
KillDisk for Industrial Systems is a quality security application that destroys data permanently from any computer
that can be started using a bootable CD or DVD-ROM. Access to the drive's data is made on the physical level via
the BIOS (Basic Input-Output Subsystem), 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
Security hardware
| KillDisk overview | 6
KillDisk authorization provided by external or internal removable USB key with license and user information. This
USB key must be inserted all the time to make KillDisk software operable.
Advanced data recovery systems
Advances in data recovery have been made such that data can be reclaimed in 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 PRML (Partial
Response Maximum Likelihood), 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, making your erased confidential data
quite accessible.
Using KillDisk for Industrial Systems, our powerful and compact utility, all data on your hard drive or removable
device can be destroyed without the possibility of future recovery. After using KillDisk, disposal, recycling, selling or
donating your storage device can be done with peace of mind.
KillDisk station overview
| KillDisk station overview | 7
Figure 1: Thecus chassis for five disk bays, open
Thecus chassis components (front)
5 x HDD bays
The chassis has 5 disk slots with removable bays for the system to perform actions on up to 5 hard drives at
a time. The bays support 2.5" and 3.5" SATA disks for use with standard HDD's and SSD's. They are also
physically lockable using the keys included in the system.
Disk status LEDs
Each disk bay contains two status LEDs to monitor the bay status and activity.
USB 3.0 port
Connect USB devices to KillDisk Desktop with high-speed USB 3.0 support.
5 x LED light indicators
5 LED indicators are used to give feedback to the user on KillDisk oeprations
Power button
Powers on the Thecus hardware unit.
Reset button
Resets the hardware unit.
LCD display
Describes current process, allows user to navigate and access KillDisk menus, initiate processes and see progress.
Navigation buttons
Buttons allow user to navigate menus on the LCD display, built into the hardware.
| KillDisk station overview | 8
Figure 2: Reverse side of Thecus chassis
Thecus chassis components (back)
Power switch
Master power switch for the unit.
Power cable connector
Connector for a NEMA 5-15-P, 3 pronged power cable.
Audio and microphone connectors
Standard connectors. Not necessary for any KillDisk operations.
1 x eSATA port
Standard, high performance eSATA port for connecting drives to the KillDisk Desktop hardware.
| KillDisk station overview | 9
4 x USB 2.0 ports
Standard USB 2.0 ports. May be used for connecting storage devices or peripherals (i.e. mouse and keyboard) to
the system.
1x HDMI port
Standard HDMI port. May be used to connect an external monitor to the KillDisk Desktop system.
1 x VGA port
Standard VGA port. May be used to connect an external monitor to the KillDisk Desktop system.
2 x Ethernet port
Ethernet ports for networking with the system.
Thecus Lights and Indicators
The system has two main areas with lights and indicators: the chassis and the individual hard drive bays. This section
will outline what these indicators represent.
Figure 3: Thecus LED indicators
Chassis Indicators
The chassis has 5 LED indicators along the left side of the hardware unit, each indicating toward different states of the
system.
Table 1: Chassis light indicators
Item Description
1 - Activity Indicator Flashes during any KillDisk active process, such as
Erase, Examine, loading, etc.
2 - LAN 1 Indicator Lights up when the LAN 1 port is used.
3 - LAN 2 Indicator Lights up when the LAN 2 port is used.
4 - Not used -
5 - Critical Error Indicator Lights up in red when a critical error occurs in the
system.
| KillDisk station overview | 10
Disk Bay Indicators
Disk bays have their own LEDs that are utilized to give the user information on the current status of the individual
bay (or disk using the bay).
Table 2: Chassis light indicators
Item Description
6 - Active Disk Indicator
7 - Disk Status Indicator
Green, solid when disk bay is being used.
Green, flashing - Read/write activity
Red, solid - erase finished
Red, flashing - read/write error
Figure 4: Thecus chassis for five disk bays, disk swapping
| KillDisk station overview | 11
Figure 5: Thecus chassis for five disk bays, front panel controls and display
What's in the box?
Included in the box:
KillDisk Desktop Hardware unit
Thecus chassis hardware, completely configured as a KillDisk Desktop system.
Power Cable
Standard grounded 3-plug power cable. Standard 2-pronged grounded cable for European customers.
KillDisk Desktop CD-ROM
Contains Quick-setup guide, documentation and clean installation image for KillDisk Desktop.
Ethernet cable
Standard ethernet cable.
Disk bay keys
Two sets of two keys to lock disk bays.
Additional screws
Screws for mounting hard drives in the disk bays.
Product Manual
Killdisk Desktop instructions and how-to guide.
Acronis True Image Backup CD-ROM
Create image backups of your latest KillDisk Desktop configuration using Acronis True Image. Can be used to
revert configuration changes or system recovery.
Utility software and external tools
KillDisk for Desktop provides several essential tools for unit maintenance and support:
File Manager
File manager for browsing local files and devices;
Terminal
Simplified terminal given ability to access additional features of Linux core;
Text Editor
Plain text editor
Web Browser
Web browser - compact software for retrieving information resources from world wide web. Preliminary network
configuration is required;
These tools available from main Tools menu.
Menu and navigation
| KillDisk station overview | 12
Most KillDisk Desktop operations can be performed straight out of the box, with no additional peripherals using
the interface included in the system. This interface consists of four buttons and an LCD display. This section will
introduce you to KillDisk's built-in interface.
Note: Only basic operations are initiated through KillDisk Desktop's LCD interface. For more advanced
settings and configuration, connect a set of computer peripherals to the device to access the Linux GUI.
Basic Navigation
Press Up and Down buttons on front panel to change active menu item and use ENTER button to select or open submenu.
Press ESC button to cancel selection or to step up in menu hierarchy.
| KillDisk station overview | 13
Figure 6: Thecus chassis for five disk bays, front panel controls and display
Main Menu
Erase
From this select all or specific idle disks to initiate erase process. Use Up and Down buttons to make a selection
and press ENTER button to start.
Note:
Use Erase Method menu to select erase method or use software Disk erase preferences on page 39
and Chassis preferences pages to select additional erase methods and attributes.
Examine
From this select all or specific idle disks to initiate examination process. Use Up and Down buttons to make a
selection and press ENTER button to start.
Note:
Use the software's Disk examination preferences on page 41 dialog to select default examination
algorithm and other options.
Erase Method
From front panel menu you can select only limited but most used number of erase methods. For advanced erase
methods and other options please use: Disk erase preferences on page 39 page in application preferences
dialog.
Automatic Mode
Automatic mode implies that disk erasure or disk examination (or both if set) will start automatically as soon as
disk is inserted in one of the bays.
Print Label
Select whether or not to print erase labels when erasing process is finished. For exact options use: Erase labels
preferences on page 46.
| KillDisk station overview | 14
Print Certificate
Select whether or not to print erase certificates when erasing process is finished. For exact options
use:Certificate preferences on page 42.
Note:
To use certificate or label printing features you have to have local printer attached or network printer
available and configured.
Boot Menu
Upon powering on the system, KillDisk Desktop loads an initial boot menu, visible in the GUI. This menu gives you
several boot options to choose from:
Load KillDisk Desktop
This option simply boots into the configured KillDisk desktop environment. This option is automatically selected and
will commence upon pressing the Enter key, or automatically after 5 seconds if no other option is selected.
Reset to factory settings
Resets KillDisk Desktop to its' original settings. This formats all user data, logs and configurations.
Command line
Allows you to specify command-line option for booting up the KillDisk Desktop system.
| Getting started with KillDisk | 15
Getting started with KillDisk
This section outlines the essential features of KillDisk and explains basic functionality to get you started, including:
•
Installation
•
Launching the application
•
Navigating the application
•
Disk Bay Layouts
•
Disk Views
•
Property Views
•
Hardware diagnostics
KillDisk installation and distribution
KillDisk Desktop distribution overview
Included in the KillDisk Desktop system are two distributions of the system: the hardware and the software
distribution. Though the hardware distribution contains everything required for the system to be fully functional, the
software distribution is also included as a recovery environment for quick and easy disaster recovery of the system.
Hardware distribution
KillDisk Desktop is distributed as a fully-configured hardware solution using the Thecus chassis - a robust multi-disk
platform for disk erasure. Simply connect the system to power and the unit is ready to perform all Killdisk functions
without any additional setup required.
Attention:
Number of disk bay slots may very depending on exact Thecus model and configuration.
Software distribution
The distribution package contains a CD-ROM with a complete bootable image containing KillDisk that can be used
to restore your installation to factory (default) settings. This may be used for crash recovery, system restoration or last
resort option to repair the KillDisk Desktop system. Though you will not need this image when you initially receive
the system, store it in a safe place for future use.
KillDisk Industrial distribution overview
KillDisk Industrial is distributed as a software solution. Simply install the application into your data erasure
workstation environment and configure it to your system.
Navigating through the application
Once the KillDisk application is launched, you will be presented with the main KillDisk application dashboard. From
here you can use any of KillDisks' tools with your system. This section will outline the main components of the
application. The full functionality and features of these components are discussed in their corresponding sections later
in this documentation:
| Getting started with KillDisk | 16
Figure 7: KillDisk application dashboard
File menu bar
The file menu bar contains can be manipulated to perform nearly any operation in KillDisk, such as accessing
elements of the program such a settings and help, changing views and what is visible in the dashboard, opening
tools, and navigating between KillDisk's windows.
Tabbed Windows
Here, you may move between KillDisk tabbed windows, the main windows being Disk Explorer, Application Log
etc..
Command Toolbar
The command toolbar is a dynamic toolbar that allows the user to perform Tabbed Window-specific actions,
depending on what window the user is in and what element is selected.
View Selection
Only available in the Disk Explorer View, this View Selection allows you to manipulate how the bays are
displayed in the Windowed view, manipulating the type of graphics used to show the bays and the cardinality of
the bays in the Disk Bay View.
Windowed view
Contains the window that is currently open.
Output window
Contains the log of operations KillDisk has performed.
Batch control window
The Batch control window is an easily accessible interface to create, delete and manipulate disk batches.
Advanced tool tabs
These tabs allow for navigation between the different advanced tool windows.
Advanced tool window
This window shows the data for the Advanced tool selected. The window can be moved, popped out and re-sized.
| Getting started with KillDisk | 17
To browse through each of these views, click on each tab in turn. You may also open a view from the View menu.
To close the current view at any time, press CTRL+F4. To open any closed view, select it from the View menu.
The status bar, at the bottom of the workspace shows the current status of the application or status of the activity in
progress.
Disk Explorer view
The Disk Explorer view is the main interface for the KillDisk application. Here, disks are visualized, can be selected
and manipulated. The status of any procedures performed on the disks can be seen here, new procedures like cloning
and erasure can be initiated, and drives can be organized into batches to be managed together.
Figure 8: Disk explorer view
View
The disk explorer supports a range of different views to use when performing KillDisk's actions, each with their
own customizable settings for different use cases.
Settings
View settings will let you customize appearance for better experience and specific for each view.
Disk Bays view
This view visually displays the disks configured in the disk bay layout. The bays are grouped by their row, colored
by the batch color, and show the current status of the disk. If any operations are being performed on the disk, the
operation and progress are displayed.
| Getting started with KillDisk | 18
Figure 9: Disk Bays view
Settings menu
Detailed view
Toggle between detailed and simplified view of disk bay controls.
Show removable devices
Show or hide additional layout row for removable devices.
Rows as Columns
This setting can be toggled on/off to display the rows (defined by the disk bay layout) as columns in the Disk
bays view.
Vertical Bays
This setting can also be toggled to change the orientation of the bays to vertical.
Disk Bays tree view
The disk bays tree view presents the disk bay layout in a standard list form, much like the disks would be shown in
an explorer. Disk bays are grouped by row and colored according to their batch color. Information such as disk status,
serial number, partitioning are shown in list form next to their respective disk bays.
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