Question about Delete and Latency

I am in the process of returning a machine running SQL Server back to
our provider. However, I don't want them to retrieve any of our data
stored in the DB. So I have the following 2 options
a) delete the rows from tables
b) remove the MDB file
Which of the options is better?
If I just delete the rows, will the SQL Server delete them from the
MDB file immediately?
If I remove the MDB file, can anyone put it back?
For instance, the Exchange Server use SQL Server and deleting a
mailbox will retain the data for about 14 days. Is there a similar
provision in SQL Server that retains the data. I don't want our
provider to retrieve any of the data.
Many thanks for reading and looking forward to replies
On 18.05.2007 15:40, soup_or_power@.yahoo.com wrote:
> I am in the process of returning a machine running SQL Server back to
> our provider. However, I don't want them to retrieve any of our data
> stored in the DB. So I have the following 2 options
> a) delete the rows from tables
> b) remove the MDB file
> Which of the options is better?
> If I just delete the rows, will the SQL Server delete them from the
> MDB file immediately?
> If I remove the MDB file, can anyone put it back?
> For instance, the Exchange Server use SQL Server and deleting a
> mailbox will retain the data for about 14 days. Is there a similar
> provision in SQL Server that retains the data. I don't want our
> provider to retrieve any of the data.
> Many thanks for reading and looking forward to replies
Depends in what state you have to give the machine back. If you don't
need to care for OS then the most thorough and simple is probably to
boot the machine using Knoppix or a similar CD/DVD distro and use dd
if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda (for all disks) to erase all your hard disks.
Other than that there are special tools for safely erasing data, i.e.
you could overwrite your mdf and ldf files with zeros after you
deactivated your DB and before you drop the DB.
Kind regards
robert