to the List

For what it is worth, my opinion is that the magnetic data is stored on disk
platters forever.  You can never erase it.  There is a residual signature.

Forensic recovery software is used to recover child porn from hard drives,
"erased" emails from White House hard drives, etc., and to convict criminals
all over the US.

It seems to make sense, because the magnetic field used to record has to be
very powerful, as the platter whizzes by at 5400 to 10000 turns per second.

The only way I have heard you can "erase" a hard drive is to physically
dismantle it, rip the platters apart, and then drive around town, dropping a
different platter in a different dumpster hither and yon.

I might be wrong, but I think your data is on there forever.  The programs
that say they can "wipe" it just make it hard for an amateur to recover it.

I had a friend back in 85 or so, who worked with a company that could
recover data even from drives that had been in fires and cooked.

Because of that, I have always been curious about the process by which data
is recovered.

I have never really believed that the drives have only the capacity they
claim to have.  A drive has a lot of errors when formatted low level at the
factory.  I suspect there is redundance of data built into the drive, so the
data may also be kept in a "hidden" area used for back up by the drives
electronics.

If true, and who knows if it is or is not "true,  it is probably one of the better kept secrets around.  

Of course this is all my opinion based on some very limited experience and research.  Since the government wanted to put a clipper chip in our PC's to identify us, and wanted to have Intel put out a chip with a unique identifier in it, to identify us, forgive me if the Government says that "it" can erase a hard drive with no possibility of recovery.  I doubt it.

Robert Hemming




> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Date:    Thu, 2 Oct 2003 05:27:22 +0000
> From:    Robert Kupferer <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Wiping hard drive clean
>
> We have a subscription to pcworld and I remembered they had stories about
> erasing and being able to recover files from a harddrive.  Well I just
went
> and looked at their website.  They have a couple of those programs.  Go to
> http://www.pcworld.com and click the downloads tab and then click
utilities
> in the subcategories below.  Check out the file management category and
they
> have programs for recovering accidentally deleted files.  Also I've been
> looking at a program from roxio called goback for computers pre windows me
> and xp that don't have system restore, it gives 95 and 98 computers system
> restore, but it also allows retreiving deleted files.  (the first
utilities
> I gave you are mostly free though).
>
> (on the other hand if I'm the one trying to completely erase the
harddrive,
> I've went to the maxtor and western digital sites and gotten utilities for
> 'zero write', but haven't gotten the chance to use them because my
computers
> haven't failed yet :).)
>
> Bob Kupferer
>
>
> >From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
> >Reply-To: PCBUILD - Personal Computer Hardware discussion List
> ><[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Wiping hard drive clean
> >Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 16:53:15 -0400
> >
> >for those who feel insecure about donating computers with the Hard
> >Drive--You may want to read this article by Larry magid at this
> >link--http://www.pcanswer.com/articles/sjm_drivedump.htm
> >mike michel
> >------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >  --- On Mon 09/29, Kenny Parks -- <[log in to unmask] > wrote:
> >Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Wiping hard drive clean
> >
> >Hey Group, I have the same question. How? I know there are companies that
> >do this for a price. What I would like to know is that if we are giving
the
> >computer to a friend, church, etc. Do you really think that someone is
> >going to go to the enormous expense to find out what you have in the
bank?
> >As a builder I wish there was a simple way to recover someones files from
a
> >crashed hard drive. I think the worse fear that my customers have is
losing
> >all their work or photos, things that cannot be replaced when their hard
> >drive crashs.
> >  -- Kenny
> >----------------------------------------------------------------- 
Original
> >Message --From: "Ken Shearer" 9/29/03
> >Subject-- Wiping hard drive clean
> >
> >There's a lot of dialog out there about wiping your hard drive clean
before
> >giving/selling the computer to someone else. Many responses say, "running
> >FDISK and simply reformatting will NOT erase the data, and it can still
be
> >recovered."  Okay, how?
> >
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