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Difficulty: HardMicrosoft Command-Line Tools

A technician needs to permanently sanitize deallocated disk space on a workstation's NTFS drive to remove remnants of deleted sensitive files. The operation must preserve all existing files and directories on the volume without reformatting the drive. Which of the following command-line utilities and switches should the technician execute from an elevated Command Prompt?

  1. cipher /w:C:\SensitiveDataAnswer
  2. B
    format C: /p:1
  3. C
    shred -u -z C:\SensitiveData
  4. D
    secpol.msc /sanitize:free_space

Answer

The command `cipher /w:C:\SensitiveData` should be executed to overwrite all deallocated disk space while preserving active files.
Executing `cipher /w:<directory_path>` instructs Windows to overwrite all unused/deallocated space on the volume containing that directory path without affecting allocated active files.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the goal and operational constraints.
The requirement is to overwrite deleted data remnants in free/deallocated space without harming existing active files or reformatting.
Security compliance requires data sanitization of unallocated clusters.
2
Select the appropriate native Windows command-line utility designed for clearing unallocated space.
The built-in `cipher.exe` tool with the `/w` parameter overwrites unused disk space across three passes (zeros, ones, and random numbers).
`cipher /w:<directory>` targets deleted file space on the specified NTFS volume.

Key Concept

Windows Command-Line Utilities (cipher.exe)
Estimated Time:1m 30s
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Topics

Microsoft Command-Line Tools

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