Answer: Yes
What’s the brand or make of the 1TB XTHD? I have one as well..
Obama hacked into your files, just to make sure you didn’t have a copy of his BC.
Because when I have a USB external hard drive, I call the manufacturer and send it back. No, actually, I just buy a new one. Typically, after a few months/years, they provide more capacity for memory for cheaper anyways. And I actually prefer firewire external drives over USB.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised if hidden viruses are shipped on them when you purchase them.
Interesting theory. Perhaps a little too complex but reasonable to assume that if you return a drive to China, someone will be officially tasked with finding out what’s on it.
Since you are technical, take the drive out of the case and attach it directly to your computer’s disk controller, using the appropriate IDE or SATA data and power cables.
You may also want to try mounting it on a Linux system, both as a USB device and, out of the box, as just another hard drive.
If the drive is truly dead, then get a BIG FAT MAGNET and bulk erase the drive before returning it. That should erase most if not all of your data. I believe there are even bulk erase machines that could do an even better job of it.
One of my clients, a major midwest refinery, does not permit the use of USB flash drives for security reasons.
You may want to contact the following:
Central Intelligence Agency
Office of Public Affairs
Washington, D.C. 20505
Phone
(703) 482-0623
FAX: (703) 482-1739
Most of these are just a harddrive wrapped in complex plastic, so if you really wanted to make sure it was a USB problem you could crack that beast open and plug the drive into the computer.
Do people really send these things in for repair? My drive busted I just bought a new one. Since it’s just a backup anyway I couldn’t lose anything. And do the Chinese really need our illegal MP3s? That’s what occupies most of the space on these things.
You ship it to an address in the US.
They probably just check to see it is one of theirs, send you another one, and throw it out.
a terabyte and multiples thereof is a LOT of data, probably mostly used by corporate and gummint agencies. Your concern seems entirely plausible to me, and as one who has opened every HD I have ever discarded in order to destroy the actual physical media, I will continue to do so......but I have the luxury of needing another lifetime or two before actually needing more than 60 or so gigs, LOL
As to the espionage theories...with electronics almost anything is possible.
For $100.00—take a hammer to it....I completely agree with you. I bought a used pc a few years ago, got it home booted it, and it booted...To my surprise, it was a pc from a VERY big computer company with what appeared to be confidential info. I called the local branch and they switched me around for a few minutes until I got a tech guy that almost laughed when I told what I had. He stopped laughing when I read a few emails from one of the exec’s. They requested that I bring the pc to them for cleaning and I did. They were to call me to pick it up the next day. Never heard from them and they tech guy would not respond to my calls. Basically, for my good deeds, I lost $50.00....Next time, I will build a website and post the data for everyone to see,,,,
i think its absurd for being so paranoid. Who are you? That the Chinese want to know your secret. Waste of time assigning millions of man hours sniff through nobodies just so they could magically stumble on some top secret information they could use. Theres better ways of putting that resources to good use
Recently I had to send my hdd to singapore to get it fixed under warranty. Maybe they too want to know my SECRETS
Yuck. You actually thought buying a USB drive at Costco was a good idea for a secure back up?
Either way I would simply take it out of its enclosure and hook it directly up to the mainboard and see if the drive itself is dead. If it is get a heavy magnet and sit it on the drive for a couple of days at least. Wven then I still wouldnt be secure with the thought of sending it in.
If the drive is good buy a new enclosure from Newegg. However I doubt it is. Cheap external drives have poor air cirulation which kills the drive.
Seagate has the drive, updated the firmware, and will ship it back to me Monday. They made an image of this drive in case it's lost during shipping, or DOA.
I have been told by Seagate this image will be erased in 14 days. To me Seagate tech support has been fantastic with this added level of data protection.
Bottom line - if you ever need data recovery off a DOA hard drive, understand others will, and can see what was stored.
That sounds like a lot of trouble for China to go through when they can simply put a virus on your Windows computer and steal your data immediately.