Hello,
I don't know if this is the right subreddit for this question, but I hope someone will be able to help me here.
I bought a HDD from Amazon a couple of weeks ago to store some old TV shows/movies. However, when I was trying out the device I noticed I also copied my phones backup folder which has all of my personal data on it (like copies of IDs). Since I wasn't satisfied with the HDD and was going to return it, I deleted everything from it. But mind you, I only learned that day that just deleting the files from the HDD doesn't mean they're actually deleted. I then installed the Seagate Toolkit software, because read that the factory reset setting and the crypto erase setting would permanently delete everything. After I deleted the files from the drive, I (in this order:) performed a factory reset, a crypto erase, a quick reformat it and a factory reset again. Then I returned the drive.
In the back of my mind I know that everything should be gone, but I just can't stop thinking about it. I contacted Seagate and they said by crypto-erasing it I did in fact get rid of everything, but I was wondering if crypto-erasing it after removing the files from the HDD messed the process up or something. Anyone have some knowlede about this?
TLDR: is crypto-erasing, resetting to factory settings and quick formatting a Seagate One Touch HDD enough to delete evrything from the drive if all files were already removed from it?