Scrub free disk blocks

[James McKenzie]

JD wrote:
[trimmed]
>   
> Well, that's the point another op has made: If you have
> a failing disk, and you have credit card account data,
> bank account data, tax data, and many other type of
> proprietary product secrets, business plans, meetings records...etc,
> then you should consider destroying the disk utterly and
> thoroughly instead of sending it in for RMA.
>
>   
Corrrect.  That is why any 'production' level disk should be RMA without 
the physical disk.  Just send back a tag and then certify the disk has 
been destroyed.  Too many RMAs and you get 'black listed' and this means 
replacing the same drive time and time again.  You have a bigger problem 
than hard drives at this point. 
> But what about the need to recover the data from such a disk?
> THAT's when you will DEFINITELY and MOST CERTAINLY compromise
> that data when you send the disk to a data recovery company.
>
>   
DDR has a clause that they will NOT release information, unless 
requested, to anyone other than the originator, unless it clearly 
violates Federal/State/Local statues.  Usually, this is records of 
viewable pornography of under aged participants.  They have been used to 
recover data from a drive that was under water for months and for a 
drive that had a hole drilled through it. 

In any case, if someone wants your data that bad, it is time to dig out 
the old sledgehammer and physically destroy the disk.  Otherwise, scrub 
and other secure erasure programs should be sufficient.

James McKenzie