Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.gateway2000 (
More info?)
On 14 Jun 2004 04:48:13 -0700, bmooo <bmooj125@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I'm aware of the software you recommend, but the situation is that my
> old hard drive failed and was replaced under warranty. With the new
> one installed, my computer is working better than ever.
>
> Now I must return the old hard drive to avoid being charged for the
> new one, and I don't want to risk causing problems by putting the old
> one back into the computer to run a disk-wipe utility; nor do I want
> to return it with my personal data intact.
>
> This is surely a common scenario. Isn't there some way to physically
> destroy data while the hard drive is outside the computer -- perhaps
> by disassembling it first? I just want to remove personal data, not
> destroy the hard drive completely thus making it un-returnable.
>
> Thanks in advance for all suggestions...
I have been lucky enough to catch drives while they were failing, so I
could transfer and/or delete anything necessary. The drive manufacturers
ususally have a diagnostic program that can be run from bootable floopy to
test the disk non-destructively, or destructively (alternately
write/read 0's and 1's), or can wipe the disk to all zeros to start
fresh).
Of course if the problem was loose head, rather than bad sectors, you
would have trouble doing anything with it connected to a PC.
I do not know how much shielding the drives have, but a strong enough
magnetic field could render a drive totally unusable by wiping out
everything, including low level formatting that cannot be recreated
without special hardware.
--
David Efflandt - All spam ignored http://www.de-srv.com/