[ILUG] [OT] Data recovery from a damaged hard drive

[Brian Foster]

  | From: Niall O Broin <niall at linux.ie>
  | Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2005 15:51:37 +0100
  | 
  | On 8 Jul 2005, at 15:35, Niall Walsh wrote:
  | > awful lot of work to make all data on a drive unrecoverable (afair US
  | > military emergency destruction involves acid while regular destruction
  | > obliterates the drives by explosion).
  | 
  | A member of this list gets his company's old drives cut in two with an
  | angle grinder. I'd say that's a pretty reliable means of destroying data.

 depends on how damaging it could be if part or
 all of the data were stolen; or perhaps more
 accurately, how valuable it would be to whomever
 gains possession.   this also applies to past
 data, since wiping a drive isn't that effective
 (if, that is, the villain is willing to pay for
 the effort needed to read the residual traces).

 I cannot recall all the details now, but c.1990
 I read a RAND(?) study on data destruction.
 in addition to how ineffectual wiping is, the
 other point I very distinctly remember was the
 recommendation that the most effective practical
 method is to incinerate the shredded platters in
 a secured facility.  at that time, I was under
 the impression that that was USA DoD (military)
 policy for any drive that had ever contained
 Secret or Top Secret data.  however, that clearly
 isn't emergency policy, where explosion or acid
 could indeed be the plan (I have no idea).

 for the less exotic concerns of this list, physical
 destruction of the platters — even just cutting
 them in half — ought to be sufficient in most cases;
 and if it is not, then after we tell you what we do,
 we'll have to kill you ....  ;-)

cheers!
	-blf-
-- 
Experienced (20+ yrs) kernel/software Eng: | Brian Foster   Montpellier,
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