Old hard drives still tell your secrets

PhysOrg.com ^ | June 01, 2005

[leadpenny]

How about if you use old hard drives for target practice?
Could someone still get the data off of it?

I ask that not know what a hard drive looks like.

[cpdiii]

I have never had this problem. Before disposing of a computer I take out the hard drive and toss it in a fire. End of data.

[gamarob1]

Terminated!

Yeah, I can't imagine selling a hard drive, but maybe that's because mine is so old...

[martin_fierro]

This might answer both your questions:

(this guy ain't tellin' NO tales)

[new cruelty]

Here's one.

I imagine some super sleuth would be able to get the data off of a hard drive that was used for target practice. I guess it depends on the artillery used.

[TheGeezer]

even large and well-staffed companies have been known to release sensitive data by way of discarded hard disks

Our department at work uses a PC on average for six years. After six years, technology has changed so much that if an aftermarket exists for used hard drives, it is too expensive to sell them to make the sale cost beneficial.

When my boss asked how to ensure that data was unrecoverable when throwing the drives away, I said, "Software to positively erase data and the time required to use it on each drive are costs we won't have to incur. I'll drive two ten-penny nails through each drive before throwing them away."

It's amazing how many drives you can make completely unreadable in about twenty minutes. Just try to recover a directory of any type from a bent, pierced platter...and the therapeutic benefits for me are immeasurable.

[AAABEST]

Computer componant target practice ping.

[Porterville]

I smash it then drop it into a water-bleach solution.

[Cicero]

O&O Safe Erase (a German product) is $45, which isn't too bad.

http://www.oo-software.com/en/index.html

Eraser 5.7 is Freeware, and appears to be well recommended. As a rule the Nerds at BetaNews are knowledgeable about such matters:

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Eraser/1010751436/1

[Allegra]

What if you rub a big ol' magnet all over it?

And then shoot holes in it?

And then dump it in bleach?

[Libertarian4Bush]

and then pee on it.

[kenth]

[Casloy]

I put em in my wife's computer. Guaranteed they will get permanently destroyed.

Ok, that was mean.

[MikefromOhio]

Here is what we did at CENTCOM

We had a 5 foot tall "thumper". More or less what it did was magnetize the hard drives to the point that the data was horrendously scrambled. Magnetic data does not like other magnetic fields.

After that, the hard drives were melted down or used for traning. Once a hard drive is used, you can NEVER completely erase the data, you can only destroy the hard drive.


and for you Lead, shooting it would only destroy the data where the bullet hits. Depending on the type of hard drive it may do the job. However, it also may not. But please don't get me into striped drives :)

[joesnuffy]

Can You Read Me Now?

[leadpenny]

Thanks. The answer is either a very big magnet or very small buckshot.

[JustAnotherOkie]

Just take them apart and use them for paperweights.

[Who dat?]

How about if you use old hard drives for target practice?

I knew a guy that worked for Seagate. He had some piece of diagnostic equipment that would read/write to test drives. He showed us how you could plug a drive into it and it’d start going through its diagnostic procedure – zero errors, zero errors, zero errors – on and on.

Then on the top of the drive was a little aluminum-tape looking seal. He pulled it off which exposed a little hole in the cover. It started recording errors almost instantly and they grew in number so quickly that within three minutes or so the test machine was showing virtually ALL errors.

He said that the lesson here was to never open one up unless you’re in a clean-room. I don’t know what exactly screwed it up. I’m guessing it was just microscopic stuff floating around in the air – and the hole wasn’t that big either. Maybe slightly smaller than a pencil would make if you jammed it into the cover.

[kennedy]

I have a small (5 PC) network. Every year I replace one of my PCs so that no PC is more than 5 years old. I have found a local charity that will take the old PCs for parts without the hard drives. I ALWAYS pull the hard drives before donating the old PCs.

Every few months I burn brush on my property. Old paper files make good kindling and when the fire is burning really well I toss the old hard drives in. I am fairly certain that no data will ever be retrieved from the small slags of metal that I pull out of the ashes the next day.