MikeD
Full time employment: Posting here.
Here's a pic of what I did to one just for fun.
Top is 9mm, middle is .22 Magnum, and bottom is .45.
Mike D.
Top is 9mm, middle is .22 Magnum, and bottom is .45.
Mike D.
Platters are steel.What Does A Hard Disk Platter Look Like? - YouTubeI think the platters are glass with a thin metal coating so they are easy to break as Erd suggests if you can get the disk open.
Platters are steel.What Does A Hard Disk Platter Look Like? - YouTube
on a windows 95 computer, I used format c:\, however not sure if that still works today...+ 1 on Killdisk.
I have used it many times. Does a single pass write-over similar to doing a format - also a free option. Simply install the target drive as a slave and do a complete format. Don't forget to delete any partitions.
I also have Acronis ($) software that does a more complete wipe with multiple passes, but takes a long time. The larger the drive the more time it will take.
Millions of off-lease computers are sold with the hard drive intact. I realize that servers do most of the heavy lifting, but there must still be some sensitive data left on these drives. Many businesses must not share this paranoia.
At Megacorp all hard drives were degaused, and shreaded.
Personally I'd trust the job to a 30.06.
MRG
It would be interesting to hear from someone with first hand knowledge pertaining to recovery of data from a hard drive after a single pass over-write.
i.e. - how hard was it, how much time was required and how complete was the recovery.
It would be interesting to hear from someone with first hand knowledge pertaining to recovery of data from a hard drive after a single pass over-write.
i.e. - how hard was it, how much time was required and how complete was the recovery.
Here's a pic of what I did to one just for fun.
Top is 9mm, middle is .22 Magnum, and bottom is .45.
Mike D.
A former co-worker brought in a hard drive one Monday morning with three holes in it, just like your picture. Told us what caliber bullet made each hole. He said the hard drive failed a week after the warranty expired and he was pissed off at the manufacturer so he used it for target practice.
After that incident I tread a little more cautiously around that individual.
Several thing come into play. What type of file system ( FAT, FAT32, NTFS etc )
and what was done to erase/delete/reformat. For instance, a quick format with FAT/FAT32 just makes the space available by changing a bit in the File Allocation Table. NTFS does similar. You could use a disk editor like Norton Utilities to change the bit and make the files available again as the actual data was not touched.
This is the reason you use a third party tool that actually wipes the disk by overwriting each bit on the disk. Probably overkill for most home users though.
What ever you use, check to make sure everything is really gone. We bought a used PC from a fellow who worked on them part time. His wife worked at a local bank, and he told us it had belonged to her bank, but he had cleaned the hard drive. When we got home and booted it up, it still had hundreds of bank documents on it. My DW called the wife of this fellow and she told us to delete the stuff, but not to call the bank. I did read one of the letters that caught my eye. It was to one of the richest men in the county about non payment on a loan. We zapped them all. But we never used the PC much, so I would guess it is still on the hard drive.
Thanks for the clarification -
I was attempting to get to the heart of the OP. That is, if she were to use a fast and free utility to over-write a hard drive with a single pass of 1's or 0's, what is the practical risk to her when the computer is then passed off to the general public.