Destroying Hard Drives

"w_tom" wrote:
If this recovering of lost data were true, then a single
erasure of Richard Nixon's Watergate tape easily and long
since would have been recovered. That also because a single
bit error does not destroy the recorded analog signal.


Nixon's tapes weren't digital.


There exists this very remote possibility that some data
might be recovered. And that also assumes one knows
which disk to spend $millions on trying to recover that data.


Once the equipment and procedures have been developed,
the actual data extraction would be routine.

*TimDaniels**

"Cyde Weys" wrote:
Everyone has heard of these random
rumors that some sort of residual magnetization
is left over after multiple random rewrites, or
whatever other random technobabble you
want to throw at us. But despite all of this talk,
it's never been shown to even be possible,
let alone done. Hence kony's challenge:
"find even one example of it ever having happened".
You can't!


:-) Let's say... I won't.

*TimDaniels*

may i suggest a fishing trip then dropping your drives on the bottom of the
ocean lol

Hi Alan,

Simply heating or smashing the drives just won't help. Secret agencies
like the NSA and CBS are capable of rejoining the fragmented molecules
of your drive even if you vaporize them. Global positioning
technologies can find the scattered fragments even if you spread the
drive pieces across the planet.

The only sure way of destroying your drives is to drop them into a
black hole. This is normally very difficult but fortunately I have one
in my garage and would be more than happy to help you out. Just
re-format the drives, pack them in bubble-wrap and mail them to me.
I'll take it from there.

BTW, you might want to backup your data first in case you change your
mind later. You wouldn't believe how many international spies and
terrorist organizations destroy their hard drives in a moment of panic
(when the CIA comes knocking on their door) -- only to come running to
me later with a sob story and a box full of broken platters. Truly a
pathetic lack of foresight!

Regards,

Chad
http://free-backup.info

I can tell you exactly what the data was on ANY hard disk platter that has been
broken, burned, shattered, hammered, shot, erased in ANY manner - even melted
drives disks.

It's rather simple.

Yeah and I'm King Kong

Alan Jeffs wrote:
I have several hard drives to destroy/completely erase. They are already
removed from the computer cases. Dismantling them one by one and sanding
the disks is messy and time consuming. Extreme heat comes to mind as an
approach. Anyone with any experience putting them on the barbeque set to
highest? If so, how long does it take? And are there any noxious fumes
expelled?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_synthesize_thermite

On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 19:20:12 -0700, "Timothy Daniels"
wrote:

"kony" wrote:
Before you believe some random urban myth about it being
possible to recover data after multi-pass random writes,
find even one example of it ever having happened.

You're leaving out "national technical means".

No I"m not. I mean, using the best technology mankind has
at it's disposal, sparing NO expense and working on it until
the end of time.

I've read (it's even on the web) that there are ways
to analyze the low levels of residual magnetization
left even after several over-writes,

Yes, and it can "maybe" result in a slightly higher success
than random chance. Taken over billions of bytes, that's
not even remotely close to being able to reconstruct data.

and that there are
ways to read the magnetic slop-over between tracks
that get left when a drive arm has become worn.

Theory about a phenomenon is not same thing as actually
being able to use it fruitfully.


When national security is at stake, the boys with the
technical means that are beyond "the state of the art"
take over.

Vague nonsense.


Of course, that is only to say that one need merely to
make data retrieval more expensive than it's worth in
one's effort to destroy it.

Nope, it's just paranoia.

There are established data-write techniques that are proven
to be unrecoverable, not as a matter of "how easy or
expensive", but rather, UNRECOVERABLE.

C'mon, ya don't believe me? Here's proof:

In no particular order the data is - ones and zeroes.

There - I told ya so. :-)

Yeah and I'm King Kong

On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 21:04:11 -0700, "Timothy Daniels"
wrote:


Once the equipment and procedures have been developed,
the actual data extraction would be routine.

Random theory.
There is no reason to believe it will ever be possible to
recover it.

Physical destruction makes sense in a different situation-
when the drive has failed (to any extent), thus the
multipass random overwrites cannot be done.