kp wrote: > "Wade Turner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Wrote: > >>I have a S900 604e/200 that I haven't used in probably >>two years. I am planning to donate it to a local school. >>Before I sent it on its way, I was going to format the hard >>drive and reinstall the original software from the CD. >>I can't recall what all I have on there but I know that >>there was some personal financial info, credit card numbers, >>a bunch of shady extensions, etc. > > > Wade! > Sorry but I just had to give you my opinion here... > I take it that you don't watch tech tv? Several times on there > lately they have told about the 2 guys from a CA university that bought > up all these "old" HD's JUST to see what they could get > off the drives. They got all kinds of stuff off HD's that people > tossed/sold, whatever. According to them, Clark Howard(consumer guru, > ATA) & some other sources I have heard recently, There's basically NO > way to erase your HD, to where someone w/the right software can't > retrieve it! > Everything I have heard recently, said the ONLY safe way > to get rid of the info, on that HD, is to take a hammer to it! > If you had all that financial info on there, are you going to > risk it? Sorry for the slight rant. > Later, kp >
Yes, you can delete everything off of the drive. If you do a quick initialize of the device, you just destroy the directory of the drive - what kp is referring to. The data remains on the drive, the OS just doesn't know where. If you overwrite the data on the drive, then no one will be able to recover the data. It is just a bunch of locations on the hard drive which have a state of on or off. Without some serious equipment capable of determining how many times that location has changed phase and guessing which phase it was in before you overwrote it and guessing this way for the billions of locations on your hard drive there is no way of recovering your filesystem (maybe if your the NSA). I don't know offhand if a lowlevel scsi format will rearrange the physical block structure on the device to prevent scavenging or not. There are various 'secure delete' utilities that will overwrite your data numerous times, and several formatting utilites will write zeroes to every addressable block on the device. A hammer is also very effective... :) tom ps - If it is a original s900 system cd AND the original cdrom drive, you can boot by shutting down the machine with the cd in the drive, and then powering on while holding down the c key. -- SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.shtml> --> 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/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
