Skeletons on your hard drive

CNet.News.com ^ | 4/20/2005 | Matt Hines

[Mike Bates]

Tax records, resumes, photo albums--the modern hard drive can keep increasingly larger volumes of information at the ready. But that can turn into a problem when it comes to effectively erasing the devices.

There are a number of options for cleansing the drives of unwanted computers, from special wiping software to destruction services to manufacturers' recycling programs. But what many PC owners don't realize, experts say, is that these methods are often not enough.

[beezdotcom]

Please. The correct spelling around here for that word is "loose," or haven't you noticed?

LOL...you're right, this is a HUGH mistake...

[RockyMtnMan]

For the truely paranoid:

Step 1 - buy a new external drive 1394a/b or USB 2.0
Step 2 - Enable AES file encryption in Windows XP
Step 3 - Encrypt all your stuff on the drive

Take it even further by keeping the cipher key on a secure USB drive. When you are done with the drive DOD wipe it 10 times and melt your USB drive with a torch. Then crack the case and soak the platters in hydrochloric acid for a week this will remove all the magnetic media from the alumninum platter(s).

If you here voices in your head still; you can always use a magnetic eraser on the remaining aluminum to make sure.

[SAJ]

This looks a bit dubious for erasing a hard drive. INT 13h is the BIOS diskette interrupt. This script appears to write random information to track 0, sector 1 of the floppy, the boot sector.

It might be the case that specifying the drive number (DL) as 80h might be an undocumented backdoor to 'fooling' the interrupt to write to the hard drive, but I've no info on this. Ordinarily, when using this interrupt, one would specify the drive number as 0 or 1, for drives A: or B: respectively.

[NautiNurse]

I messed up a perfectly good hard drive years ago by deleting *.*

The IT guys had a good laugh at my expense.

[beezdotcom]

For the truely paranoid:

Step 1 - buy a new external drive 1394a/b or USB 2.0....

Meanwhile, there's a guy in a van outside your house reading everything on your screen from the video card RF leakage...

[RockyMtnMan]

TFT baby!!

[raccoonradio]

>>"What we've seen with a lot of clients is that they think that reformatting a drive gets rid of the data, and that's just not true,"

Yikes--and I just got rid of my old computer by selling it to a used comp. shop (they paid me $125) for future re-sale. So reformatting it may not necessarily get rid of passwords, etc.? yikes.

[Landru]

"LOL. Sounds like a case for CSI."

Yea.

...or at least Mulder & Scully. {g}

[The_Victor]

Dell had me use that script to "reset" my harddrive when we were troubleshooting a bluescreen in WinXP. We were trying to eliminate the possibility of a boot virus, and this was the last ditch effort to clear the harddrive.

Turns out the problem was the CPU, but at least I learned something (a lot actually).

[Mike Bates]

No prob. What did you say your SS number is?

[Darksheare]

Well.. umm.. I did clean that mouse out of my tower case.

[tomswiftjr]

I agree, I scrap out my old computers, take out the hard drives and take them to the rifle range. .30-06 180 gr. BT soft points take care of the hard drive quite effectively.

[VRWC_minion]

[SAJ]

Interesting. What this implies is that INT 13h has been redesigned to be a 'universal' BIOS service for any drive, including hard drives -- or that it always WAS, but that the capability to write to the hard drive with this interrupt wasn't documented for a long time (I'm using a 1999 reference book here).

Thanks for the info!

[whd23]

(Hard drive) + (Firearm of choice) + (Plinking range) = Data privacy

[Route101]

when you are ready to throw your old computer out...remove hard drive and let it sit over night in a large coffee can of Formby's finish remover......ah!...peace of mind.

[Loud Mime]

ROFLMAO!!!!
'
Thanks for the great laugh!!!

[B4Ranch]

One clip or two?

[js1138]

The modern ID movement is an attempt to end run around another USSC decision that struck down Louisiana's "Creationism Act"

Drive platters are being made of glass. A nail through the platter ought to do it.

[whd23]

FYI:

Art of Assembly