Clearing the unallocated disk space

[Bill Oliver]

On Mon, 17 Nov 2014, Ed Greshko wrote:

> On 11/17/14 12:58, Tim wrote:
>> There have been cases of people getting refurbished drives which did
>> have the previous owners data on them.
>
> Do you have first hand knowledge of this or is this something you've just heard about?
>
> The reason I ask this is I have a friend that worked at WD in the HD manufacturing and refurbishment area a few years back.  I had asked him about this very same thing.  He indicated that WD had very strict quality control and he couldn't think of a way it would pass through their processes with previous data still intact.
>
> Or, maybe you're talking about cases where the drives aren't actually going back to the manufacturer?
>
>

Well, it's been reported a number of times.  See, for instance:

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/02/09/1525212/ask-slashdot-how-to-deal-with-refurbed-drives-with-customer-data

I've bought "refurbished" *computers* with data on them -- though it was clearly not the drive that was "refurbished."  There are still a lot of small computer stores, particularly in rural areas, that spiff up older boxes and sell them at a discount, and there are vendors at those things they hold at the state fairgrounds now and then who show up with piles of old laptops they sell for a song.  Those are all sold as "refurbished," but pretty much really mean "we vacuumed the keyboard and replaced the broken power connector."

billo