I strongly agree with Tim. While I trust that Seagate is handling the drives appropriately, you aren't guaranteed that they won't doll this task out to a sub who isn't as thorough. It's also not clear what they mean by a "low-level" format. Keep in mind that the drive tracks which sectors are usable and not - if a drive detects that a sector is unreliable, it will mark it as bad (leaving the existing data intact) and never read or write from it again. When a drive is subsequently wiped, it will skip past these sectors leaving the existing data in place. Ideally, they would erase the bad sector list and wipe every physical sector on the disk. Again, I reasonably suspect that Seagate handles this properly but a degauser is relatively cheap insurance.
-Joel p.s. As a quick after thought, this is a very secure way of hiding data. 1.) Erase bad sector listing; 2.) Wipe drive; 3.) Write data; 4.) Manually mark those sectors as bad; 5.) Data is now hidden. As far as I know, this process requires a some fairly expensive and specialized hardware but it is capable. "The path to hell is paved with good intentions." On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 5:16 AM, Tim Mugherini<[email protected]> wrote: > We recently went through a similar line of questioning with our > vendors/manufacturers and received a mix of responses. In the end we > purchased a degauser. None of them seemed to care if drives were > degaused before sending back. > > On 7/7/09, Dan Stadelman <[email protected]> wrote: >> I think I was talking to tkrabec in IRC about how hard drive vendors >> handle the data on defective hard drives that were returned under >> warranty. So I sent a question off to Seagate to see what they do with >> the data on defective drives... >> >> Obviously if there is something sensitive on the drive, then you >> should destroy it - but their response was pretty interesting... >> >> Dan >> >> QUESTION: >> >> Hello, >> >> I was wondering what happens to the defective drives that are returned >> to Seagate. I know you sell refurbished drives - is the data on the >> returned drives wiped before you sell them a refurbished drives? If >> so, how are the drives wiped. >> >> I am worried about someone being able to recover data off a returned drive. >> >> RESPONSE: >> >> Thank you for sending your Seagate E-mail inquiry. >> >> Seagate takes measures to ensure the security of all of our customer's >> personal, confidential data. When a drive arrives at our returns depot >> facility, it will first be tested. During the first phase of testing >> it is low-level formatted which completely wipes it of any and all >> data from sector 0 to the last sector. As a returning defective drive, >> if the drive is not in a functional state capable of a low-level >> format, the drive is disassembled and the platters (where the data is >> stored) are recycled. Once a platter is removed from the spindle of a >> hard drive, the data is no longer readable by any means. >> >> Regards, >> >> Hassan Zouga >> Warranty and Customer Support Escalation >> Seagate Technology, Inc >> 1 800 SEAGATE >> ref:00D0hhzl.50036lvP0:ref >> _______________________________________________ >> Pauldotcom mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://mail.pauldotcom.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pauldotcom >> Main Web Site: http://pauldotcom.com >> > > -- > Sent from my mobile device > _______________________________________________ > Pauldotcom mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.pauldotcom.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pauldotcom > Main Web Site: http://pauldotcom.com >
_______________________________________________ Pauldotcom mailing list [email protected] http://mail.pauldotcom.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pauldotcom Main Web Site: http://pauldotcom.com
