www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

thescruff wrote:Get the screwdriver out Bobbie and see how it all come apart.

Go on you know you want to.

Are you feeling better now Bobbie.

Lol, of course I want too, they dont call me 'bobbie the basher' for nothing you know

am okay john, many thanks for asking, have a lot going on at the moment, but am getting there, am a strong woman even though I look as though a puff of wind would knock me over lol

Will Pm you soon and give you an update

Good to hear now get the tool kit out

If your computer still works, then you can safely erase all of your data without resorting to a hammer. There are free packages that systematically work through each sector on the HDD and over write it it 0's, 1's, etc from start to finish, thus ensuring your data cannot be retrieved.

Does take a while though....there is no denying that.

Ouch...that hurt to type!

Here is a simple to follow video from youtube to show you how to get aty your hard drive, then just whack it with a hammer, even a secure format like dban can leave traces of data.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lVnFlFrqhE

TRACES, being the operative word here.

One must apply common sense to the sensativity of the data that is contained within HDDs. Are we talking a sector of data that has not been erased (the HDD MAY have disabled the sector and re-mapped) that MIGHT contain enough USUABLE data to cause probelms?

I find myself asking the question, what are the odds of someone finding a HDD that is erased. Then having the know how to re-enable the disabled sectors. THEN recovering the data. THEN making sense of it. THEN being able to exploit it. There is enough low hanging fruit for the people that chance their luck with non-erased HDDs to not be concerned with the drives that have been disposed of in a controlled manner.

You must have some pretty serious security concerns if that bothers you to those extreams.

Still, just one goats opinion here.

BG

Tell me Goat, if one was to remove the hard drive and smash it up.

Could a clever one, actually take sections of the disk and read the blocks in any way.

Ccleaner now has a Drive wiper in it's kit. It will wipe free space or all the disc and erase everything. It can do 1, 3, 7 or 35 overwrites to wipe the disc.

dave

thescruff wrote:Tell me Goat, if one was to remove the hard drive and smash it up.

Could a clever one, actually take sections of the disk and read the blocks in any way.

Technically it is possible to retrieve data through forensics and specialist equipment. I've been to a recovery lab and it's quite astonishing the level they can goto. The cost, is out of the realms of mere mortals though, which is why I said earlier - what data are you trying to protect.

If you had military grade stuff or SERIOUSLY important/personal/sensitive data - then you would be encrypting the drive anyhow, so I feel it's all a bit of a moot point.

Would it happen to average joe? Highly unlikely.

BG

i have sent hard drives that have been hammered up to forensic companies to retrieve users accounts information and such, expensive to do but the company wanted the data so we found a way to get it back, remarkable stuff.... here we use wipe disk 3 pass 0 1 0 then we have a degaussing machine here that destroys disks using a magnetic field

Many forms of generic magnetic storage media can be reused after degaussing, including audio reel-to-reel tape and VHS videocassettes. These older media types are simply a raw medium which are overwritten with fresh new patterns, created by fixed-alignment read/write heads.

For certain forms of computer data storage, however, such as modern hard drives and some tape backup drives, degaussing renders the magnetic media completely unusable and damages the storage system. This is due to the devices having an infinitely variable read/write head positioning mechanism which relies on special servo control data that is meant to be permanently embedded into the magnetic media. This servo data is written onto the media a single time at the factory using special-purpose servo writing hardware.

The servo patterns are normally never overwritten by the device for any reason and are used to precisely position the read/write heads over data tracks on the media, to compensate for sudden jarring device movements, thermal expansion, or changes in orientation. Degaussing indiscriminately removes not only the stored data but also removes the servo control data, and without the servo data the device is no longer able to determine where data is to be read or written on the magnetic medium.

Nuclear bomb, strapped to the HDD....stick it on a boat and push it into the middle of a pond. Sorted.

BillyGoat wrote:

thescruff wrote:Tell me Goat, if one was to remove the hard drive and smash it up.

Could a clever one, actually take sections of the disk and read the blocks in any way.

Technically it is possible to retrieve data through forensics and specialist equipment. I've been to a recovery lab and it's quite astonishing the level they can goto. The cost, is out of the realms of mere mortals though, which is why I said earlier - what data are you trying to protect.

If you had military grade stuff or SERIOUSLY important/personal/sensitive data - then you would be encrypting the drive anyhow, so I feel it's all a bit of a moot point.

Would it happen to average joe? Highly unlikely.

BG

Just buy an ACER laptop, wait a year and you'll never have to worry about the hard drive...

Self destruct do they Wine~o

thescruff wrote:Self destruct do they Wine~o

The day after the warranty/guarantee runs out...

For the same reason to make sure that no personal data 'escaped', I took the HD out of my old laptop and then put the machine on ebay as 'not working'. It sold for 30 quid.

Thanks for all your imput guys, I think I will take it apart or hammer it lol, and get rid of it a bit at a time, cant really see another way out, tbh I wouldnt have a clue to use one of those programs thingys that clears it.