iPod Restore/Reformatting & traces of data.
 

Let's say I wanted to sell my iPod on ebay and do a factory restore on it which wipes out not only any existing song data, but also data from when I used it as an external drive.

Is there a chance someone can run an undelete utility to see what was originally on there, or did Apple build in something to the restore functionality?

I tried scanning with an undelete utility just to make sure and a lot of the existing files on there seem to be renamed with very awkward file sizes, so perhaps it's already doing this... but was just wondering if anyone knew for sure.

When I accidentally reformatted my iPod using iTunes (long story) I was able to recover everything on it BUT the songs using an undelete utility, so I'd be wary of relying on that to protect any personal information you've put on there.

On a Mac you can use Disk Utility to write 0s to the ipod hdd. There's probably a similar program for windows.

cipher!!!!!!

on XP it's

cipher /w:d

(where d is your drive letter of the ipod)