On Tuesday, February 18, 2003, at 11:37 PM, Stephen Bright wrote: >> Good advice. But the article to which the original poster was >> referring identified drives that had been formatted but data was >> recovered anyway. > > Even a low level format with 'zero all data' checked? > Stephen
Yes. The deal is that the magnetic field on the surface of a disk doesn't necessarily respect sector edges. As you write your data (zeroes, ones or random) old magnetic images get pushed to the "edges" of the sector. This is known as ghosting. The only truly secure way to dispose of drives which contain data that you don't want ANYONE else to see (including government agencies) is to use an industrial-strength degausser or to melt the platters down. Drilling through/physically destroying the drive can render it inoperable but the platters can still retain their magnetic data. A couple of articles from The SANS (SysAdmin, Audit, Network, Security) Institute discuss security, data, and hard drives: <http://www.sans.org> <http://www.sans.org/rr/incident/deletion.php> <http://www.sans.org/rr/privacy/sensitive_info.php> Phil Burk ________________________________________________________ Systems Support Technician Wiley Publishing, Inc. 10475 Crosspoint Blvd Indianapolis, IN 46256 317.572.3049 phone 317.572.1049 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-Books list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
