[ale] OT: Erasing a toasted drive

[tfreeman at intel.digichem.net]

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.

On Fri, 28 Oct 2005, James P. Kinney III wrote:

> On Fri, 2005-10-28 at 11:00 -0400, Alan Dobkin wrote:
> > On 10/28/2005 10:49 AM, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> > > Get a bulk tape eraser that plugs into the AC wall socket. That will
> > > ruin the hard drive platters and the heads right through the case. Give
> > > it about 30 seconds of erasing.
> > 
> > Greg's earlier post contradicts this advice:
> 
> When I was doing my grad school work, we had numerous problems with high
> magnetic fields and hard drives. Granted, we were working with some big
> stuff (1-4 T) but we still had issues even 20 feet away where the field
> strength was down to about that of a bulk tape erasure (.01T). We would
> regularly have hard drive failures and damaged sectors even though the
> drives were in some really heavy steel cases. Monitors fared even worse.
<<snip some interesting destructive ideas>> 
> My favorite is to blast it with radiation from a nuclear reactor. About
> 20us from a 200MW nuclear reactor near the surface of the rods will do
> it as well. I don't want the drive back after that, though :)
> 
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. 

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...

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.


-- 
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