On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 5:49 PM, Robert L Cochrancochranb@speakeasy.net wrote:
I'm surprised this thread was reawakened...makes me wonder what sort of child I created here!
I first used Alan's suggestion about checking for, and if possible, using the security erase feature of a security-erase enabled hard drive. This drive was too old to have such a feature. I checked it with hdparm -I and then hdparm -i to verify the fact.
I then used Sam's dd suggestion on the drive. I selected his suggestion because dd is standard Unix/Linux software, it has presumably passed security audits, and I don't have to make some decision about whether it would "phone home" on me or perhaps leave a nice little tar file on some area of the drive.
Then I disassembled the drive. You don't need a standard screwdriver for it; the main requirement is a torx driver and a little ability to peel off the seals marked "warranty void if removed".
I then did some fairly nasty things to the read/write heads and platters and threw out certain items drive hardware so that it is most unlikely the drive can be reassembled. The platters were futher belabored and rendered scratched, badly bent, and little-kid dirty
With all that effort to securely erase the data, and the question on a public mailing ist, anybody would think that you HAD important data to begin with in there!.
If I were an evildoer, I´d google your name, lookup your home address and then pick up your trash tonight. *VBG*
FC