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Cheap Bulk Eraser for Hard Disks?
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."
Open the hard drive (get some Torx T-7 through T-9 bits first, you'll probably need them), pull the platters, and sand them.
Ecce potestas casei!
http://www.semshred.com/content291.html
Ecce potestas casei!
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.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
I've heard that most HD manufacturers understand this common problem, and will allow you to remove and return only the top cover (with the complete model/serial number sticker still entact) of each failed drive as proof that it was destroyed. You should ask about this when requesting an RMA number for your batch of dead drives.
That some companies have a deal with the hard disk manufacturer that they'll ship only the drive's cover when it fails, and destroy the rest. Not 100% sure if this is possible, but if your reason for wanting to wipe the drives is getting a warranty replacement, you might want to consider that.
Otherwise, use thermite, and lots of it. It's cheap and fun.
A bulk eraser, aka degausser, will destroy not only the data, but also the factory written tracks. The end result is that the drive can never be used again. This may invalidate the warranty if the manufacturer doesn't offer the "send back the face plate" option. Not to mention, most of these degaussers cost 10 times that of a replacement drive according to a quick google search. Considering your line of work, make sure you pick drives from manufacturers that allow replacements without sending back the data.
I just modded down 4 people in this article, which out of the couple years I've been getting mod points probably doubles the number of posts I've modded down.
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", etc. IS OFF TOPIC. (Despite me modding them redundant, off topic would be better.)
Maxtor, Western Digital, and Hitachi all replaced drives that we'd sold into sensitive environments with little fuss. Hitachi needed a signed form faxed back, Maxtor & Western Digital needed the top cover of the drive.
Fellowship 9/11
I've never seen cast aluminum used for the cover. Usually, it's a relatively flat piece of stamped metal. It has filters and stuff built in, so you can't just replace it, but it's just a cheap piece of stamped aluminum. Anyway, the reason the manufacturer won't accept faceplates for warranty claims is due to several reasons:
- 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 rebuilt or reformatted. The warranty replacement drive you receive is someone else's failed drive. Because most manufacturers don't perform proper verification, it's not uncommon to get a defective or about-to-fail replacement. I would never use a warranty replacement drive for even a semi-important application, and certainly not in a server.
The military doesn't think so.
There's
- Software wiping (MilStd 5220.22-M)
- Degaussing (MilStd 5200 28-M)
- Destroying the platters. "destroyed by melting, incineration, crushing, or shredding."
This is more difficult than you think.http://cc.uoregon.edu/cnews/summer2005/purge.htm 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
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
They are not hermetically sealed, but they are sealed against dust, so yeah, opening it will fuck it up pretty fast. But it will run for 20-30 minutes before it craps out.
the drives were no longer recognized by the SCSI controller,
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.)
-- Alastair
I recently got rid of some very OLD equipment. I had some old hard drive that predated me by 15 years. They were huge and I had no idea what was on them. They weren't IDE or MFM. They came from the day that hard drives required an external controller card. Since I needed to wipe anything that left the building I didn't have many options. I did what my predecessor and his predecessor had done.
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.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs