bit-tech Shopping: Iolo Technologies Iolo DriveScrubber 3

Rating: 8

Time with product: 7 Days

Strengths: Price, effective

Weaknesses: None

Summary: I have several old machines that I have been holding onto because I was concerned about the data on the drive. Now I can wipe out the drives and donate the systems with peice of mind. I don't mind the time it takes to do a better wipe of the data. I bought the product to wipe out the data and want that done to the best of the software ability.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 2 Days

Strengths: Price; Easy to use.

Weaknesses: None so far.

Summary: I have several old computers need to flea market. However, I don't want to keep my private data safe. I did a research on internet and finally bought this soft. It's from iolo, if you have experience with System Mechanic Pro, you will be used to it quickly. The biggest pro is that it can do wipe within Windows. i.e., you don't need to use a boot disc to reboot your computer. This is a must-have soft if you take your private info seriously. Highly recommend.

Rating: 6

Time with product: 2 Months

Strengths: Low cost

Weaknesses: Slow when using more thorough erasure modes

Summary: Drivescrubber 3 offers several different levels of erasure, including one that is supposed to meet U.S. Government standards. Each level of erasure is more thorough than the previous one but is also much slower. I tried the first two levels of erasure on some disks I had. I didn't have the patience to try the highest and thus slowest levels. I then tried some disk recovery tools to see if I could retrieve any of the data. None of the disk tools was able to recover the erased data so Drivescrubber 3 passed with flying colors. The only problem I had with Drivescrubber 3 is that according to the manual, the CD it comes on is supposed to be bootable and it wasn't. If your computer lacks a floppy drive as most do nowadays, you'll have to make a bootable CD or get a external USB floppy.

Rating: 6

Time with product: 3 Weeks

Strengths: Easy to use

Weaknesses: Very slow at highest erasure setting

Summary: I bought DriveScrubber 3 in order to erase the hard drives of some computers that had had important financial information on them. I installed the program and since I needed to use it on more than one computer, I created some bootable floppies with DriveScrubber on them as the program tells you to do. DriveScrubber erased the hard disks without a problem.

Rating: 6

Time with product: 5 Days

Strengths: Gives confidence that your hard drive and finger drives are thoroughly erased.

Weaknesses: Had problem with initial set up.

Summary: Installed DriveScrubber3 CD on my Vista 32-bit desktop. But when I opened the application Windows Explorer had a problem with it. Trying to wipe a hard drive, cancel, or close application would prompt an error of window not responding. Had to use the Task Manager to close it. Contacted Iolo customer service, and I was given somethings to try, but did no resolve problem. Played with it on my own over the weekend and ended up using the properties of the the program and setting compatibility for Windows XP (Service Pack 2). Now everything works the way its advertised.