Is it safe to return a hard drive to the manufacturer?

My laptop hdd is on it's way out (lots of clicking followed by computer freezing), and it is still under warranty. I was worried about sending it back because my data is on there. I think I'm going to format it before I return it, but of course the data is always retrievable.
How safe is it?

 

You can use DBAN to completely erase it, unrecoverably

http://www.dban.org/download

 

Depending how sensitive and/or important/unique the data is, I'd rather thrash the HD than send it back. When a drive goes south and I 'de-commission' it, I literally take a hammer to it. I don't stop until the platter is bent/broken/scratched beyond recognition and the associated electronics thoroughly flattened.

The one drive I did end up returning was very unsatisfying for me. Seagate (forgot which version though, but a 2.5" notebook model) returned a 'refurbished' model which I never could trust after that incident (I ended up giving it away).

With the drive I returned though, I ran a 7 times overwrite 'wipe' on the full drive about 5 or 6 times - even though it was only a few weeks old and I didn't have my important data on it. That took about a week to do!

For me, much cheaper to simply buy a new HD than face all the hassle of securely overwriting the old/defective HD (and how can you be sure it did overwrite every sector properly) and simply getting back a refurbished unit.

As you noted, formatting is no form of protection for your data. You may as well give them the drive as is.

For a while, I would hang the mangled platters (from dead HD's) from my car mirror - much more entertainment value! And much better data 'security' too.

Good luck.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5144441&postcount=4

 

@tilleroftheearth: I dont know who you are neither what you do, but if you are a regular person like me, you are being just a little paranoid

 

If you have access to an old degaussing gun (the kind they use to clear old tube TVs), just point and fire that at it...lol

MAGNETOBLAST!

"Beeeoww!"

lol, I have no idea if this will work or not, but thats a massive amount of magnetism I dont think any data could survive.

 

Soviet Sunrise,

I can agree with that, but my point is this: If your HD is 'acting funny' and has become unreliable, how do you know that overwriting even once is actually happening?


fmac,

call me paranoid (and I do think I'm a regular person), but I have yet to see any of my work floating around the internet because of a false sense of data security. (Photographer).

 

Many HDD wiping applications that have cross check will detect if the drive failed to write over any of the sectors. For example, DBAN will halt if the drive is physically incapable of writing. Of course, if that happens, then the sledge is the next best course of action. Nothing makes a man feel better than knowing that his HDD is secured by his own hands.

 

I use a plasma torch on mine

 

I would just destroy my drive with a hammer or sledgehammer if i wanted to be extreme and dispose of all the thousand pieces

 

...I paid 50 bucks for the thing 6 months ago. I don't want to destroy it.
Thanks for the DBAN link, ahl395. I will try my hand with that.

 

Unless there's some kind of compromising data on your hard disc, I'd just send it. Otherwise, back it up if possible(and if needed), wipe it then send it.

 

Just write a bunch of zeros to it. DBAN is overkill. There is not a data recovery company on the planet that could recover data from a hard drive just zeroed, much less a single pass of random data. There MAY be some governmental agencies, but it would be INSANELY expensive so they'd have to be VERY sure that you had something highly sensitive/valuable on it. I'm talking federal government, not state or local level. Just get a linux boot disk and dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sda bs=2M and let it run for 40 minutes.

 

How many billion dollars would it cost to recover data from this method of data destruction http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRr-QFggpfU ?

 

For those intent on utilizing physical force to render their hard drives inoperable (such as the method described above), be warned that some hard drives use glass platters which can quickly become lethal shards of shrapnel if care is not used.

 

$0. It can't be done. The thing is that the physics of hard drives have changed... they used to be able to "read" the leftovers between the bits and figure out what was there before. What we have now is hard drives that are made to such high tolerances that for all practical purposes those "in-between" leftovers just don't exist even when you look at the platters through electron microscopes, especially with perpendicular writing and such. That is why a simple zeroing of the drive will clear it completely as far as any data recovery or even government is concerned: http://www.root777.com/unix-linux/the-great-zero-challenge/ (the challenge is over and the site is dead, but the concept remains firm)

 

Well then i'll just blow it up at a distance... shrapnel should be no problem then.

 

Just want to point out the problem with those 'challenges': they do not allow the HD to be disassembled - well, that is the first step to doing 'real' data recovery.

So, do I think that data can be 'easily' recovered? No.

Do I think that data can still be recovered (by any means possible) even if its overwritten? Yes.

Paranoid? Possibly.

But for the few dollars it costs to replace HD's these days it is not even worth considering 'giving' your information over to an unknown 'someone' (for warranty concerns) when you can get a brand new HD easier (if not cheaper) by going to your local tech store.

 

I just boot an OSX disk and zero the drive like a couple of times and that's it for me.

 

These guys had the same idea about getting rid of a whale carcass. Take a look at what happened to them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBgThvB_IDQ

p.s. I know you were not serious. But these guys were professionals. So I thought it might be see what goes through people's minds sometimes.

 

ok bad idea lol... looks like writing 0s is the best way...

 

Why do you guys smash them? Just take apart the drive and you get some pretty aluminum discs, plus a pair of super strong magnets!!

 

When I was at school my class did a course through some company CISCO I think?

and smashing the drive with a hammer is actually the recommended way to dispose of an old harddrve. with safety glasses on of course.

 

U.S. Government takes extreme steps to protect highly classified material that has been discarded in a hard drive. They wipe the hard drive with proprietary algorithm and then pulverize the hard drive platter. Good luck doing data recovery from that!

 

Just image the failing drive using Acronis, erase the suspect videos and format a few times.

 

This is the only extreme step you need.

 

I wonder if using a couple of magnets would make the platters info unrecoverable

 

Naaah, that's not it! This would do it :laugh: