Re: Failed Hard Drive

From: Michael Pelletier (mjpelletier_at_mjpelletier.com)
Date: 05/17/05 

Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 22:13:13 -0700

David H. Lipman wrote:

> From: "nemo_outis" <abc@xyz.com>
>
>
> |
> | How adroitly you leap to conclusions. The original poster stated only
> | that the drive had failed, not the nature of the failure (perhaps only a
> | noisy
> | bearing?). It is by no means clear that the drive was unwritable.
> |
> | However, it was not by accident that I included the disjunctive "or" in
> | my
> | post. If multiple overwriting of the drive is not feasible for any
> | reason,
> | it hould be destroyed. Degaussing is unlikely to be effective and there
> | is
> | no practical way of confirming its effectiveness. Unless one is
> | satisfied to run blind and naked, this will not do.
> |
> | Regards,
>
> Any degausser capable of 1700 Oerstads or more is more than adquate on a
> 3.5" or 5.25" HD,
> and here we are talking about a 2.5" HD. Since the disk has failed, who
> cares what state
> the hard disk is returned to the vendor in. They weant the "core" hard
> disk and that's all.
> Under the RMA the vendor understands the drive has failed. They can fully
> expect it to be fully defective.
>
> Why don't you take the time and read a few DoD specifications such as DoD
> 5200.28-M on data sanitization before you start making statements such as
> "Degaussing is unlikely to be effective" !
>
> He does not have to buy a unit, it could be rented. He can also contact
> local Industry related INFOSEC organizations where he can use, rent or
> borrow a device.
>

...that is were I got the idea from. I used to work for the gov...and we did
a two stage approach. Software over-writing (all 1s then all 0s) then a
degausser...hey, it's good enought for gov work ;-)

Michael 

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