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Recovering Data From Broken Hard Drives and SSDs (Video)
Russell Chozick owns a small company in Austin. TX, called Flashback Data that recovers data from messed-up hard drives. And SSDs and Flash memory, too. How badly damaged does a drive have to be to defeat Russell and his crew? Apparently, smashed to bits. Not long aqo we did a video about a company that destroys data on hard drives, and we've had at least one Ask Slashdot where the question was, "What's the Best Way To Destroy Hard Drives?" In today's video, Russell is talking about the opposite of destruction -- except that he destroys data upon request, too. Obviously, checking the wrong box on a customer order form could cause big problems at Flashback Data, couldn't it? Let's hope they never do that -- and let's hope we all back up all of our data so we never need to use a data recovery service. You do back up all your data, don't you?
...is to literally destroy the drive...
A small four-pound sledge and a suitable hard surface to act as an anvil and one can break the aluminum case into bits in a couple minutes and crease and crack the platters to the point that there realistically isn't anything being read from there. If you're REALLY worried, break out the plasma cutter and just cut the platters into bits...
Speaking of bits, Spanish colonial currency were "pieces of eight". "Shave and a Haircut, two bits" is a $0.25 cost. So, eight bits to a full unit... Coincidence for eight bits to a byte, or intentional?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
No, it's true. Check out this post for evidence.
The Wayback Machine still hosts a site that details a lot of APK's illness and insanity. It makes for some good reading:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060627084830/http://www.jaylittle.com/jaylittle/default.aspx?cmd=article&sub=display&id=30
That doesnt mean it cant be done.
This is like saying "i have a new encryption method, and noone has yet demonstrated that they can break it". That does not mean that it is secure, or a that a simple analysis of the method would not display glaring weaknesses; someone could very well be exploiting it and simply keeping it on the DL.
It is hypothetically possible to recover from a single overwrite, because it is a fact that "magnetic domain remnants" are left after an overwrite. Whether or not we have the technology / money / whatever to recover it is irrelevant to the fact that there is still data there to be recovered, and its foolish to pretend otherwise.
Meanwhile, it IS known that if you raise the platters to the curie temperature or degauss the drives, you cannot recover any data.
That statement =/= "impossible", but rather "not feasible".
In other words, you probably dont want to rely on it as secure destruction if the information will be sensitive years from now, because new technology could change "not feasible" to "doable".