Salon On Computer Forensics

splorf writes "Salon has a good new article on computer forensics, focusing on Lee Tydalska, a guy in Southern California who started collecting old computers and peripherals as a hobby, and now has a nice business doing data recovery from weird and obsolete media for investigators (or normal users who just need media conversion). "It hardly needs saying why this craft has grown in importance", the article says, "but if one word sums it up, it's 'Enron-itis'". Oh yes, the #1 outfit in the field is apparently a UK firm called Vogon International. You've got to love this stuff."

Comments

vogon international

[Atilla]

"we can recover any data, even punch cards from a planet blown to pieces to make a path for a new hyperspace bypass"

Might you be able to help me?

[Yoda2]

I recently came across a box of these strange little plastic things. I'm fairly sure they are some sort of computer medium. They are about 3.5" square and various colors. On one side there is a silver circle toward the center, a little less than an inch in diameter.

Anyone know what they might be and how I could go about reading them them?

Re:Might you be able to help me?

[Anonymous Coward]

From your description I can only assume that the storage devices which you have are a little old... it sounds like they have deteriorated over time

In order to restore these disks for use in a modern computer system, may I suggest that you carefully take apart the disk, ensuring you dont loose the little spring
Once you have removed the black bit from inside, it needs to be renovated
a coating of nail varnish works quite well
scatter ground up matchstick heads over the top of the disk and put it back together

Your computer should then be able to read it
if it still doesnt work, try a more expensive computer

Re:Might you be able to help me?

[smagoun]

Ha indeed! Yours is only 5-6 inches? Mine's a full *8* inches - and that's just the diameter. Heh.

You on the left, me on the right

More info on the drive

Re:Might you be able to help me?

[Indras]

Ah! You seem well versed in the old stuff!

Perhaps you know where I could find a tape player that can run this??

Yes!

[xamel]

So, does this mean that the government will pay me to use my old Commodore64 machines (3 of em) to read all those old criminal records disk? Time to cash in!

need help

[Anonymous Coward]

Can these guys help me recover a term paper I made on my old Coleco ADAM computer? Its on the a cassette tape. My paper was due July 1984 perhaps I can still get partial credit!

When I retired an old fileserver....

[dmaxwell]

I once had to retire a Mac LC II was the building fileserver. This thing had financials, the private records of students; you name it. I low-leveled the drive and wrote 0's to it. Once that was done, I drilled several holes through the platters. I broke the bit off the drill in the process. The drive with drill bit stub stuck in it looks like Count Datatula with a spike through his heart. We keep the spiked carcass around to show people how to make sure that sensitive data gets destroyed.

Re:I guess the question to ask is....

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Want to verify you're wiping everything? Want to be really sure? take the platters out of your hard disk and grind them into powder, then mix them into cement blocks and drop them off a pier