[ale] OT: Erasing a toasted drive

[James P. Kinney III]

On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 15:53 -0400, tfreeman at intel.digichem.net wrote:
> Ultimately, this type problem has a bearing on why I _don't_ care for 
> guarentees on my computer equipment - there are frequently issues which 
> get in the way and cost as much time as just a flat replacement at retail 
> cost. YMMV of course, and I've got sufficient spares I can afford 
> something being down.

> I think we've had this discussion before, sufficient destruction of data 
> held in a hard drive. I'm still partial to the HF platter destruction 
> approach, although I wouldn't want the drive back either and recognize the 
> hazzardous waste issue. 

HF is scary stuff! It has such a fondness for all things protein.
> 
> Being useless, how about putting the drive at the bottom of a crucible, 
> layering (?) 5lbs of thermite, lighting the Mg fuze, and stepping back. 
> Visually pleasing, and I'd be a little surprised if even NSA could get raw 
> bits back afterwards. Invite the destructive little children in your 
> life...

Oooo! Pretty lights and fun hissing noises. Too bad DHS will come
knocking on the door later.
> 
> On a more serious note: I would somewhat assume that this situation 
> happens often enough that Dell (or any other distributor) would have a 
> recommended policy for customers with sensitive data which needs 
> protecting. I'd be curious what policy does exist.
> 

That is a good question that I would also like an answer to. This past
week I had to send a hard drive out to a data recovery lab (CFO had not
been making any kind of backups and didn't approve the funds to get an
automatic one set up. Wish I had been there when the IRS showed up 5
minutes after the drive failed wanting documents explaining something
they didn't like on the company's tax return.) and there was lots of
info about NDA's and privacy, etc. The drive was under warranty, but we
picked up a replacement drive anyway since the dead one had to go to
forensics and we needed the box back online ASAP.

Yes, they are NOW getting an automatic backup system installed. The
drive recovery will cost about the same as the backup system.

For the archives, http://www.EcoDataRecovery.com is who I'm using for
this one. They are in Florida. You know, where the hurricane just
went...
> 
-- 
James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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