Video of hard drive crushing

jon_banquer fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Hmmmm.... I wonder just HOW destroyed a drive needs to be before it's 'completely' destroyed.

Anyway... Ig, This is just 'seat of the pants' thinking, but I don't think that press of yours is putting out more than 20 or 30 tons, regardless of it's rating. I do a lot of pressing of all sorts of things in my business.

150 tons will darned near deform 1/2" malleable steel rod into flats. It should have reduced those two drives, which are MOSTLY hollow aluminum castings, to 'fritters', even in the flat orientation. That it didn't is confusing.

Cylinder size? Pressure AT the cylinder when it meets the load?

Only those two things matter. What's on the badge only tells you what it could put out, if it were driven to capacity.

LLoyd

Only the disk inside. The electronics have no information.

I destroyed a couple HDDs for a client a couple months ago. They're amazingly stout, and hard to mangle in the slightest. It really surprised me. I think it dented my hammer. ;) And I told her that the next time, ask me first. I'd use a heavy duty drive eraser software on it.

I want him to fire the videographer. Man, talk about a jumpy flick...

Larry Jaques fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Larry: 1) I was being facetious. 2) not true. There's usually flash memory on the board that holds a sector-map of the surface defects, which, although not "user data", is useful information for retrieving any data remaining.

Keep in mind, too, that forensic recovery outfits can scavange data off of PIECES of the disk, even when it's been (apparently) smashed to oblivion. Even the glass substrate ones.

For all intents, if you're not breaking any major federal laws, what Ig did is sufficient.

jon_banquer fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

But he's making MONEY in the 'scrap business'. Unlike you, sitting in your mommy's basement apartment sending out idle threats via Internet.

Lloyd

I am not only in scrap business, but I agree, I would not hire "jon banquer" to be my personal "success coach".

Oh. ;)

Only if electronic wiping -wasn't- used.

Not for forensic recovery. He didn't say he used software first.

What is important, is not only the fact that the hard drive was crushed and the disk broke into many pieces. What is also important is what happened to those pieces. They were thrown into a commercial dumpster, some were lost on the way or swept into the floor, etc.

i

I wonder whether you would hire him to sweep floors?

John B. fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

He's not qualified. He never grew up emotionally, relying on mommy for subsistance, has no social graces, zero technical skills, and he's too much of a pussy to do physical labor. He's a standard 'ward of the state' case.

The good news: Some day, an angered ex-pat Moskvich or down-on-his luck machinery repair guy who doesn't like the tone of Jonnie's squeeky little voice or the sound of his widdle foot stamping, will call him out and permanently silence him.

The bad news: We have to put up with his filth and stink until he does.

Lloyd

Yes, but the bad guys who had you under surveillance would see where the garbage went and rifle through it for evidence to be used against you. Since they weren't wiped, much data could be retrieved forensically.

Huh? That's some porous concrete you have there, Iggy.

Would be a big insurance risk.

i

These are old hard drives from a defunct computer that I owned. They held some cryptographic keys that I did not want to release outside of my control.

i

Ignoramus8074 fired this volley in news:NdWdnSOLVKII3XnPnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Just wait. You'll find one on the surplus market!

Quite the contrary. SCSI drives expose and allow a "low level format" facility where every byte of every sector can be written over with a chosen pattern. It does take a while, though, to wipe every bit of every sector on large drives! OTOH, embedded-controller SCSI drives do it in a "stand-alone" mode, such that the computer attached need merely start the format, then disconnect and go service other drives.

Contrary to urban myth, a sector that's _truly_ been written end-to-end with a new pattern leaves no 'residue' data that can be read by a forensics person. That only happens when sectors are updated with partial-sector data (read/modify/write vs. fill/write).

LLoyd

Lloyd

A big disk takes over a night to overwrite. Crushing... 1 minute...

i

Ignoramus8074 fired this volley in news:tbqdnakuF5LIxnnPnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Ig, You never did address that issue of the press's actual force. Do you know the cylinder diameter and actual fluid pressure at the cylinder port?

150tons should have dealt with those on the flat (especially considering they were crossed, and not having their frames in direct-line support).

LLoyd

I meant to check the pressure on Monday. I do want to follow up on it because I suspect that you are right.

i

IMPORTANT TIP: You do not need to stay up and watch it as it is being overwritten.

Not when it runs on an off-line computer without a wireless card. It doesn't even try to make a connection -- I watch for that, and what process invoked it.

The approved procedure for wiping a hard drive containing secret data over wrote the drive three times. It seems like requiring belt and suspenders to me. But that is ( or at least was ) the requirement where I worked.

Dan