Cheap Bulk Eraser for Hard Disks? 166
cute-boy asks: "Recently I had to replace some hard disk drives from the same batch which had failed, while still under warranty. Because the drives were no longer recognized by the SCSI controller, it was not possible to erase the data on them. In view of the sensitivity of the data contained upon them, and the chance this was still forensically recoverable, our company decided to buy new drives rather than risk the disclosure of their contents by returning then to the supplier. How would you non-destructively (physically) destroy data on a hard disk without access to a bulk eraser? Obviously in this case it's a bit late to be thinking of using encryption."
Why no physical? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Why no physical? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I don't send back anything except a sheet of paper that says the old drive died and I have destroyed it. It helps that I work for an organization [irs.gov] that buys 30-40K drives a year; we can negotiate deals like that. As for the possibility of using this situation for personal enrichment, no computer tech in this place is going to risk losing their job and jail time just to p
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
- they can't verify the drive has actually failed
- they can't verify the drive wasn't physically damaged
- they can't refurbish the defective drive
Most drives you send in are actually
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That costs an order of magnitude more than a pallet of drives.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You could knock another faceplate out tha would serve the same purpose for less than $5 in material and maybe an hour of your own personal time. Assuming you had the machines and tooling.
Actually a lucrative thing to do, if you have the resources
Re: (Score:2)
First, you can certainly make a replacement, but the problem is getting the original off, and the new one on, without ANYTHING getting in there. Do you have a vacuum chamber lying around?
Besides that, the hour of your time probably isn't worth the cost of most types of refurbished hard drives. The manufacturers consider them worth about $40.
Maybe you could make a
Re: (Score:2)
I know drive companies have, in some cases, accepted photographs of the drive top stickers and serial numbers for warranty returns. The company signs a contract promising that these drives really are bad, and in exchange the drive vendor sends them a replacement. This works around the rules of many sensitive installations where no non-volatile storage can leave the premises without being c
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Obviously you failed to placate the God of Technological Peversity.
As a result, yoru computer has become a revenant. Expect it to show up in your
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
1) $2000 degausser
2) $50 for a really nice sledge hammer from home depot (shock absorbing handle)
Since they were willing to spring for replacment drives rather than risk data disclosure, I'd opt for the sledge hammer. You can buy a lot of hard drives for $1950.00.
Consider it therapy for the geeks...
2 cents,
QueenB
Re: (Score:2)
If the data in question got out and it will cost more than $2000 in damages, then buy the degausser as a one-time-cost preventive measure and use it.
Open them up and flip the platters over (Score:2)
Should only take you about ten minutes per drive to do this. All you need is one of those special screwdrivers.
PS: Do it in a recently vacuumed room - if dust/hairs get in the drive it can be detrimental.
Re: (Score:2)
Heh. Classic understatement.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Degaussing the drives may not be thorough enough, given various anecdotes about the ability to recover data off almost any drive using fancy super-expensive equipment.
Unless you've got IBM Deathstar 75GXP's (and if you do, well your data is already as good as gone), your platters are probably metal. Even if you have Deathstars, their platters are glass and are susce
Re: (Score:2)
Physically destroy the platters (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Physically destroy the platters (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Physical destruction is your only choice... (Score:1)
I like taking the drives apart for the magnets, then using heat on the platters...
If you've got your heart set against the physical (Score:5, Funny)
Never tried it myself, though everyone on the intrawebs largely agrees that there are legions of the mighty dust army waiting breathlessly for you to crack open the drive so that they can invade it. There is apparently no invention of man capable of withstanding their attack, meaning a high possibility that if you perform this operation and then plug the drive back in, a single dust atom will be all that is needed to whir around frantically in the formerly pristine environment, loosing the veritable fires of Hades on your poor machine until it erupts in a wild, flaming mess, sending shards of platter in all directions to seek the soft flesh of babes and women.
So yeah, they don't recommend doing that.
Re:If you've got your heart set against the physic (Score:2)
Re:If you've got your heart set against the physic (Score:2)
Won't work. At least, not in a drive with more than one platter. Not reliably, anyway. If the platters are not aligned with each other in the exact same position they were in the original drive, it probably won't be able to read the firmware from the drive's track zero, so it won't identify itself to the BIOS properly, or
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure if it's possible / easy to do that with these particular drives, but it's worth looking into...
Re: (Score:2)
Re:If you've got your heart set against the physic (Score:2)
This sounds so redundant...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Or maybe try somebody like these folks (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Special return options... (Score:5, Informative)
Also depending on who your vendors are, you can usually upgrade your service so that you do not need to send back failed disks. Dell for instance has this as part of one of there higher level support contracts.
Top cover? (Score:2, Informative)
I've heard somewhere (Score:3, Informative)
Otherwise, use thermite, and lots of it. It's cheap and fun.
Bulk erasure (Score:1)
The answer seems clear. Even if you hard a piece of equipment to erase a drive's contents, you would not be able to verify that the erasure has occurred without the drive functioning in the first place. Therefore, there is unlikely to be
Introduction to slashdot groupthink... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Magnet! (Score:2)
Re:Magnet! (Score:4, Informative)
The military doesn't think so.
There's
http://cc.uoregon.edu/cnews/summer2005/purge.htm [uoregon.edu] So, hitting with a sledghammer doesn't seem very effctive.
A power drill and wire cup brush (http://shop.com.edgesuite.net/ccimg.shop.com/230
Re: (Score:2)
I thought degaussing was accomplished via exposure to an oscillating magnetic field.
Cool links. [blogspot.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Now for sensitive data, I remove the platters from the drives, collect them up and once a year on the 5th of November I put
Re: (Score:2)
Very interesting. Probably glass/ceramic platters.
Re: (Score:2)
Logic boards (Score:1)
Recover the data, or cook the drive (Score:2)
Another idea is to cook the drives. Heating a drive in an oven should give the data a good scramble. I'm guessing it is probably better than a degausser considering some of the comments here.
My preferred method... (Score:1)
My favorite method involves and magnetic induction burner or hotplate. The benefit of this is it will destroy the data but leave no external trace.
Bulk eraser won't help anyhow... (Score:1)
Sledgehammer in the parking lot on the platters (removed from the drive, if possible) should do nicely for any application short of national security secrets - just be sure to wear safety goggles.
-Isaac
Re: (Score:1)
Read the fucking summary (Score:1, Informative)
THE POSTER ISN'T ASKING FOR METHODS TO DESTROY THE PHYSICAL DISK -- in fact, he specifically says that he does NOT want such methods. What he wants is ways to destroy the DATA without destroying the DISK so that he can return it to the vendor for warranty replacement.
Thus everyone saying "destroy it with thermite", "find someone with a tire shredder",
It's because they don't know the answer (Score:3, Insightful)
There is probably no such thing as a cheap and effective bulk eraser. We have an agreement with Maxtor (now Seagate) that allows us to send in the chassis for a replacement, minus the platters. The replacement contract is expensive, though, but we need it since we have a LOT of banking data.
Re: (Score:2)
And because you posted in this article, all your moderation is erased like their harddrives will.
Re:Read the fucking poster ID (Score:2)
Yes, of course.
Does nobody pay attention to ANYTHING anymore?
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, checking the Post Anonymously box in the Reply form lets you post as AC, yet will still undo any moderation you've done. So you need to logout to avoid de-moderating
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Since the idea is to destroy the data, why does it have to happen in a clean room? Why not in the utlity room?
Did you talk to tech support? (Score:5, Informative)
Make a building from their dust (Score:1)
(no) Disassemble (Score:1, Offtopic)
The most painful way, but only sure way to accomplish this is to disassemble the drive and melt the platters. If they are really old drives, then waving the disassembled platters under a wand-based degausser usually works. This stuff is all measured in oersteds. The recording head has to overcome the coercivity of the magnetic media in order to record a reliable signal. Coercivity is the strength of magnetic field (measured in, you guessed it, oersteds) required to alter the alignment of the particles o
Degausing Table. (Score:1, Interesting)
It was THE COOLEST THING. You would place anything with iron and/or magnets on it, turn it on (don't wear a watch) and all magnetism is gone with in about 2 feet.
Call the manufacturer, (Score:2, Redundant)
Once you get the replacement drives, take them to the range and fill them with bullet holes. A 2 3/4" 12 gauge slug should take out a quarter of the drive at a time. Or fill with 9mm holes - when hit, the platter around the entry hole gets pulled out.
A
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Use a blowtorch.
Lava is a good place to dump em, but could be a bit inconvenient.
Re: (Score:2)
BOFHs around the world rejoice that they now have a good excuse for travel to Hawaii...
You Can't Get There From Here (Score:2)
Then again, I'm still wondering WTF the term "bulk eraser" is supposed to mean.
A useful starting point would be reading Secure Deletion of Data fr [usenix.org]
You are out of luck (Score:2)
Second, I don't think you can get bulk erasers that work for modern harddrives. The magnetic fiel strenght may just be too large.
Advice: Do physical destruction and live with the financial loss. Acting first and thinking later has a price. Please pay it.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not aware of any modern hard drive that will survive erasure of the embedded servo data.
Second, I don't think you can get bulk erasers that work for modern harddrives. The magnetic fiel strenght may just be too large.
You can, they just wont be cheap or small. See the NSA Degausser Evaluated Products List [nsa.gov] (PDF).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
MRIs are not cheap. They are in fact so expensive, that it's not even cheap to get time to use one.
Throw away (Score:2)
2. If your data is so sensitive that you can't risk sending it back then that risk is far more than the cost of the drive. Physically destroy it and buy some other brand to replace it.
3. Its doubtful that degaussers (as suggested elsewhere in the responses) would work. The platters are encases in relatively think metal wh
Re: (Score:2)
He's talking about a server drive so I assume he means SCSI. Most of the failed scsi drives I've worked with where the board itself was still good report themselves on the scsi chain with a size of 0. If that is his situation, then you're right: he won't be able to zero-write it.
another solution (Score:2)
If you're a big enough customer, or the vendor is understanding, perhaps you can arrange for them to inspect the drives under your supervision and confirm that they are no good. Then take them, accompanied by the vendor's representative if they want to be sure you destroy them, and drop them into the vat at your local steel mill, or whatever less dramatic method of physical destruction works for you.
SCSI controller or on-board electronics problem? (Score:3, Informative)
A problem with the SCSI controller, or with the drive's on-board electronics?
If the former, just replace the controller. Check this by moving the drives to a box with a working controller.
If the problem is the on-board drive electronics, then using a working drive of the exact same make and model, carefully undo the 3 or 4 screws holding the circuit board to the drive and swap the board from the good drive with the board from the bad drive. If this was the problem you should now be able to access the data on the old drive.
I've done this with a Seagate Barracuda that had its electronics fried because of a catastrophic power supply failure (detonated one of the chips and vaporized a couple of circuit traces). Swapping the board from an identical drive (I had a bunch around) let me recover the data. Not knowing the condition of any circuitry within the drive itself, I retired the drive after copying off the data. I would have erased it too but I was planning on disassembling it anyway.
(NB - even the same make an model number doesn't guarantee interchangable parts -- I had a similar problem with a Western Digital 80GB drive that I didn't happen to have a duplicate of, although that model was still on the market. Alas there's another 4-character code after the model number (ie, the "real" model number, except you need to see the faceplate to find it out) and in the year or so since buying the first one, there were enough minor changes that the circuit boards weren't interchangeable.)
Re: (Score:2)
If the former, just replace the controller. Check this by moving the drives to a box with a working controller.
Don't overlook the possibility an employee may have lifted the terminator. I've seen where this is overlooked when drives stop working in a SCSI environment.
Re: (Score:2)
("Did you check that it was plugged in?" "Don't be silly, of course I ch... Oh, oops.")
Whole disk encryption (Score:2)
AR-15 (Score:2)
Fun too. They bounce around pretty nicely.
Of course, if you want to send it for warranty exchange, the manufacturer probably wouldn't appreciate yoru marksmanship. But if the alternative is to keep them forever so no one else can try to recover the data, I'd say go for the AR-15.
Or M-1 Garand. Or any other reasonable facsimile.
Re: (Score:2)
Anybody know the appropriate sized shot for a hard drive?
Use a hillside (Score:2)
just buy a large (Score:2)
What am I missing? (Score:2)
A microwave? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Physical destruction is unavoidable. (Score:2)
So, in keeping the military standards for such things, I suggest you find a way to render the platters unspinnable without creating too mush haz
If you're in the medical field... (Score:2)
Sandblasters worked for us (Score:2)
Outsource (Score:2)
Three Options (Score:2)
If the sensitivity has a fixed (and reasonably short) duration secure storage may be your best bet. Could be as simple as, say, putting it in a cabinet in the server room for a year, by which time the patent application will be filed and you can just tip the drive.
The most likely scenario is tha
park them in the corner of your office (Score:3, Informative)
I left the drives sitting in a cabinet where they had sat for the last 2+ decades.
Since you don't need to send the drives back to the manufacturter and you just need to be sure no one else can get the data, why don't you just sit on the drives? If they sit there for 10-20 years then even if the data were to get out in the wild it would likely be 100% useless anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Quick question - how does the vendor reliably receive the hard drives? Here's a list of possibilities (which may or may not be implemented):
- UPS, Fedex, DHL or other freight companies
- Postal mail (regular service)
- Postal mail, registered.
- Hand delivery by customer or personal pickup by vendor.
In the first two options, there are chances of freight issues where the packages get lost or stolen. In the third option, t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"...That will not work. The only thing to do is destroy the platters. The residual magnatism will permit anyone with a sensitive detector to read the disk. You need to destroy the platters to make the disk unreadable...."
Yes it will (work). This kind of tinfoil-hattism is a hangover from the days of MFM & RLL, when the tracks were sufficiently widely spaced that the overspill between tracks could be read with sufficiently sensitive equipment. Not any more, not in the era of 200GB+ in a 3.5" form fac
Re: (Score:2)
Basically, rather than using expensive electronics and such to gather the data, you use the drive itself. Your first task is to attempt to identify and source the vario
Re: (Score:2)