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| Thread ID: 30666 | 2003-02-27 06:02:00 | Secure Destruction of a hard drive? | PoWa (203) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 124357 | 2003-02-27 09:42:00 | What about a grinder like they use at the cremating places. They burn the body then deal to the non-destroyed bones with a grinder. So I'm thinking that borrowing one of these could be a good idea. I can't really see someone assembling it all back together again. |
-=JM=- (16) | ||
| 124358 | 2003-02-27 09:43:00 | Shove the HDD in another computer, format it, and then use PGP 8 on the now free space many times over? And then format it again. Then use PGP 8. Or use a free tool to overwrite the data first, a search on google ought to find some, and I'm sure http://www.analogx.com has a tool to securely delete files. Then repeat the whole process again. You might be able to find a tool that also fills an HDD up with useless junk data, then cleans it, then repeats again? | agent (30) | ||
| 124359 | 2003-02-27 09:50:00 | Have a look at this (www.techtv.com) site as they have quite a few programs listed that should work. Perhaps to be sure you could run them all :D Cheers Steve |
Steve Askew (119) | ||
| 124360 | 2003-02-27 18:39:00 | PoWa Tell me, if you don't mind, why you are concerned that someone might use an electron microscope to read your hard disk? From my experience, the problem is more often being unable to read a hard disk when you need/want to than the reverse. Forensic methods of scraping data and ghost images from disks are only really options in the world of 007 and the America's Cup. As an aside, filling the hard disk with files of say five similar names (Like cat0001-cat9999, dog0001-dog9999, etc - we had a batch file for doing this somewhere, can't remember where) and cycling through them to create them, then mass deleting cat*, defrag, dog*, defrag, etc would munt the images on there sufficiently to prevent anyone from bothering looking further. robo. |
robo (205) | ||
| 124361 | 2003-02-27 21:02:00 | I agree robo At the risk of sounding a little pointed, I think PoWa is straining at a gnat. Either that or there is some possibly unjustified paranoia present. PoWa: Unless you have highly confidential miltary grade secrets on your HDD, or seriously illegal material that might be subject to a probing forensic search process followed by a long holiday at Her Majesty's pleasure, just use a standard disk washer then reformat your drive and get back to enjoying life. The contents of your HDD are unlikely to be of any interest whatsoever to any other person but yourself. If the contents are that interesting/precious/dangerous, then $200 for a new HDD and the enjoyment of ritual destruction is a cheap price to pay for peace of mind. Cheers Billy 8-{) :| |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 124362 | 2003-02-27 21:42:00 | Oh yes, I forgot to mention PoWa There is nothing but NOTHING that can recover data from an incinerated HDD. I think we are in urban myth territory again here. Firstly, the magnetic properties of the disk surface are destroyed by heat, and secondly, the physical substrate turns to gumbo as well. The metal or glass disk platters may remain intact if the temperature is not high enough to melt them but there's no data there so it doesn't matter. I should have realised where you were coming from whan I read that "electron microscope" comment. Now I can appreciate why no advice or realistic technical solution will ever satisfy you. At this point it seems to me that you will either have to live with your fears, or overcome them. Spending $249.95 looks increasingly attractive from where I sit. $200 will buy the replacement hard drive and $49.95 buys a butane torch from Jaycar that will apply 1300 degrees celsius to your disk platters. That will easily melt aluminium, glass, copper, bronze, aluminium alloys and a few more substances. I reckon that's more than enough HDD security. Cheers Billy 8-{) :| |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 124363 | 2003-02-27 22:05:00 | depends on the brand of your hdd. download disk util from their website. and zeo fill the hdd. |
yang11 (170) | ||
| 124364 | 2003-02-27 22:38:00 | what i want to know is, WHY are u wanting to do this, do have like illeagal government documents on your hard drive? are the mafia or FBI after you???? have u P***** someone off real bad?????? |
Jams (1051) | ||
| 124365 | 2003-02-27 22:48:00 | Dude, either you have one of the worst cases of paranoia I,ve ever seen or you have been watching to many American movies. Just take it out and give it a jolly good beating with a hammer then dispose of it. A |
Archibald (180) | ||
| 124366 | 2003-02-27 22:53:00 | u could do what me and a friend did open the HDD up plug it in and turn it on, and jam a fork on the platters while it is spinning at about 5,400 rpms, sounds dodgy i know, but itmight work, it will compltely destroy the surface area. just be careful of flying objects though :D :D :p |
Jams (1051) | ||
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