Wiping a dead hard drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter MF
  • Start date Start date
The person who said, just send it back, they won't bother trying to revive
it, is probably right, but since it contains tons of financial information,
paswords, and other forms of ID, I didn't feel comfortable with that
probably. I think a chip or other element on the circuit board failed. So
if the thing fell into the hands of the wrong person, it would be simple to
revive. Again, that's not probable, but as we all know, there are people
out there who steal in every conceivable manner, so being paranoid seemed
the logical thing to do. Sraightening out financial/identity theft can take
years.
Click to expand...

This is something I've considered. If your drive fails, so that
you cannot access it, are you really going to ship it off to a
strange company, with all your personal and business data on the
disk? Or are you going to hit it with a hammer, and buy a new
drive, even though the old one is still under warranty? My guess
is that if you care about your privacy, you are going to swallow
the loss and just buy a new drive, rather than risk anybody at
Maxtor or elsewhere reading your data.

Luckily for me, the times my harddrives have failed, I've always
had enough warning to write zeros to the drive before sending it
off for a replacement.

It is in the interests of the harddrive makers to preserve the
FUD, since they save money if you ignore your own warranty and
just buy a new drive ... as long as it is one of their drives.
What they should do is certify that your data will never be seen
by anybody and that the drive will be wiped clean or physically
destroyed. They should explicitly guarantee this, if you send a
defective drive back for replacement under warranty.
 
Al Smith said:
This is something I've considered. If your drive fails, so that
you cannot access it, are you really going to ship it off to a
strange company, with all your personal and business data on the
disk? Or are you going to hit it with a hammer, and buy a new
drive, even though the old one is still under warranty? My guess
is that if you care about your privacy, you are going to swallow
the loss and just buy a new drive, rather than risk anybody at
Maxtor or elsewhere reading your data.

Luckily for me, the times my harddrives have failed, I've always
had enough warning to write zeros to the drive before sending it
off for a replacement.

It is in the interests of the harddrive makers to preserve the
FUD, since they save money if you ignore your own warranty and
just buy a new drive ... as long as it is one of their drives.
What they should do is certify that your data will never be seen
by anybody and that the drive will be wiped clean or physically
destroyed. They should explicitly guarantee this, if you send a
defective drive back for replacement under warranty.
Click to expand...

I agree - this would certainly be good customer service. But that doesn't
seem to be their primary concern. They must be aware that a potential
problem exists - even in terms of their own liability - but as we have seen
over and over, companies tend to ignore this sort of thing in the hopes that
they can settle individual cases for small amounts. Even when the product
is potentially lethal. But in this case, it shouldn't cost them much money
to provide the customer with a better policy.

Mike
 
lol. that's what I'm looking for, but don't know where to find one.
Click to expand...

I saw some strong on Ebay .
Look for "Neodymium Magnets"

You may want to ask of they can wipe HDs without dismantling.
Also see

http://www.networksecurityarchive.org/html/Security-Basics/2004-
10/msg00344.html

"I have sold the rare earth magnets for disrupting information on discs,
but we do not claim to remove info, only disrupt it enough so it is not
readable.", and, "I have sold the larger neo blocks to hospitals and to
governmental agencies for this application. But the neo magnets are
expensive, the largest is a 1" X 2" X 2" NB147N-35 and they are $55.00
per."

http://www.dansdata.com/gz009.htm

That gives me a thought ...

I do have about 90 odd floppy disks I want to trash though so a little
magnet would save me some time and effort. And save my floppy drive from
having to read some of the dirtier floppies that have been lying around
for years.
 
Lordy said:
I saw some strong on Ebay .
Look for "Neodymium Magnets"

You may want to ask of they can wipe HDs without dismantling.
Also see

http://www.networksecurityarchive.org/html/Security-Basics/2004-
10/msg00344.html

"I have sold the rare earth magnets for disrupting information on discs,
but we do not claim to remove info, only disrupt it enough so it is not
readable.", and, "I have sold the larger neo blocks to hospitals and to
governmental agencies for this application. But the neo magnets are
expensive, the largest is a 1" X 2" X 2" NB147N-35 and they are $55.00
per."

http://www.dansdata.com/gz009.htm

That gives me a thought ...

I do have about 90 odd floppy disks I want to trash though so a little
magnet would save me some time and effort. And save my floppy drive from
having to read some of the dirtier floppies that have been lying around
for years.
Click to expand...

http://www.wavinc.com/item1377.htm
 
seabat said:
Actually, you would be better off with a 44-40 or .357mag or a similar
style of bullet. All the 30-06 cartridges I've seen have a jacketed
bullet which would probably put a 30 calibre hole in the center of the
disk, assuming that you are a fair shooter. The 44-40 or .357mag or
the like would have a blunt nose and maybe be a hollow point and at
the most semi-jacketed. This would cause the projectile to impact with
a larger size because of deformation and there fore tear the hell out
of the disk no matter where the bullet impacted. But YMMV. --
The Seabat
Click to expand...

Actually, you wouldn't be better off with a 44-40 or a .357. Most all 30-06
rounds are for hunting and are either soft point or hollow point, so they
expand and kill the animal rather than going through it. Hot loads come out
at 3100 fps, normal loads at 2700 fps with a 180 grain bullet. A 30-06
compares to a 44-40, a .44 mag, or a .357 mag as a tank does to the Hummer
you see cruising your local mall. A 30-06 would blow the drive to pieces.
But that was not what I was looking for.

Thnx,

Mike
 
MF said:
Actually, you wouldn't be better off with a 44-40 or a .357. Most all 30-06
rounds are for hunting and are either soft point or hollow point, so they
expand and kill the animal rather than going through it. Hot loads come out
at 3100 fps, normal loads at 2700 fps with a 180 grain bullet. A 30-06
compares to a 44-40, a .44 mag, or a .357 mag as a tank does to the Hummer
you see cruising your local mall. A 30-06 would blow the drive to pieces.
But that was not what I was looking for.

Thnx,

Mike
Click to expand...
Humor is tough in newsgroups. I was going for something with recognition.
30-06 sounds a lot less like a drill bit than .458. I wasn't expecting many
who know what a grain is. Your power comparison is spot on.
That was a last resort.
 
T Shadow said:
Humor is tough in newsgroups. I was going for something with recognition.
30-06 sounds a lot less like a drill bit than .458. I wasn't expecting many
who know what a grain is. Your power comparison is spot on.
That was a last resort.
Click to expand...
That's about where I am at, at the last resort. And this one would at least
be fun. I once shot up a fridge and a TV set with a 12 gauge for a movie -
hell of a lot of fun. :)

Mike
 
Cool! Only $2,423.56. Now if I knew someone at a place that had one of
these.....
Click to expand...

"...Please note that hard disk drives cannot be reused after
they are degaussed, as the degaussing vibrations damage the
read/write heads..."
 
Cool! Only $2,423.56. Now if I knew someone at a place that had one of
these.....
Click to expand...


Depending on who you are trying to keep your information from, the
above model may not be strong enough to zero a modern hard disk.

The web site for the manufacturer shows that there are NSA-spec
degaussers, but a quick read of the specs for the NSA models doesn't
claim to erase hard disks, just tapes and floppies.

http://www.garner-products.com/harddrive.htm

A sledge hammer is still your best bet.
 
?Formol?

Al Dykes said:
Depending on who you are trying to keep your information from, the
above model may not be strong enough to zero a modern hard disk.

The web site for the manufacturer shows that there are NSA-spec
degaussers, but a quick read of the specs for the NSA models doesn't
claim to erase hard disks, just tapes and floppies.

http://www.garner-products.com/harddrive.htm

A sledge hammer is still your best bet.
Click to expand...
 
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