Bulk erased drives
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From: Grant on 25 Jun 2010 17:56 On Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:57:11 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > >Grant wrote: >> >> On Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:40:18 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell(a)earthlink.net> wrote: >> >> > >> >D Yuniskis wrote: >> >> >> >> Hi, >> >> >> >> A 501(3)c that I am affiliated with received a donation >> >> of several hundred ~80G SATA/PATA drives the other day. >> >> They have allegedly (?) been bulk erased. I was asked, >> >> today, if there is any way to make the drives serviceable, >> >> again. >> >> >> >> I have not seen the drives or had a chance to play with >> >> any of them. As "proof" that they were bulk erased, I >> >> am told each drive bears a label: >> >> ERASED >> >> Magnetic data is completely erased. >> >> Erased product can't be reused or repaired. >> >> >> >> When *I* take a drive out of service, I "bulk erase" them >> >> (after "electronically" overwriting the existing data) and >> >> then subject them to the 500G drop test :> But, I'll admit >> >> I have never *tried* to recover data from a drive thusly >> >> (ahem) "treated". >> >> >> >> My initial response to them was "recycle them, they're trash". >> >> Was I too hasty? >> >> >> >> I would imagine all the servo information, low level >> >> formatting, bad sector table, etc. are gone or corrupted >> >> so putting these back into service would require "special >> >> factory tools"... >> > >> > >> > There is a software command for newer drives to erase all data. >> >> Yes, but it takes too long to execute for commercial reality? > > > Have you ever tried it? No, but the time quoted for secure erase in 'smartctl' report for HDD is similar period to what writing zeroes to entire surface would take. So I 'dd' zeroes to the HDD instead :) Grant. -- http://bugs.id.au/
From: D Yuniskis on 25 Jun 2010 19:02 Hi Grant, Grant wrote: > On Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:57:11 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > >> Grant wrote: >>> On Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:40:18 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell(a)earthlink.net> wrote: >>> >>>> D Yuniskis wrote: >>>>> Hi, >>>>> >>>>> A 501(3)c that I am affiliated with received a donation >>>>> of several hundred ~80G SATA/PATA drives the other day. >>>>> They have allegedly (?) been bulk erased. I was asked, >>>>> today, if there is any way to make the drives serviceable, >>>>> again. >>>>> >>>>> I have not seen the drives or had a chance to play with >>>>> any of them. As "proof" that they were bulk erased, I >>>>> am told each drive bears a label: >>>>> ERASED >>>>> Magnetic data is completely erased. >>>>> Erased product can't be reused or repaired. >>>>> >>>>> When *I* take a drive out of service, I "bulk erase" them >>>>> (after "electronically" overwriting the existing data) and >>>>> then subject them to the 500G drop test :> But, I'll admit >>>>> I have never *tried* to recover data from a drive thusly >>>>> (ahem) "treated". >>>>> >>>>> My initial response to them was "recycle them, they're trash". >>>>> Was I too hasty? >>>>> >>>>> I would imagine all the servo information, low level >>>>> formatting, bad sector table, etc. are gone or corrupted >>>>> so putting these back into service would require "special >>>>> factory tools"... >>>> >>>> There is a software command for newer drives to erase all data. >>> Yes, but it takes too long to execute for commercial reality? >> >> Have you ever tried it? > > No, but the time quoted for secure erase in 'smartctl' report for HDD > is similar period to what writing zeroes to entire surface would take. > So I 'dd' zeroes to the HDD instead :) Some new drives run everything in/out of the platters through a block cipher (?). So, you can effectively "erase" the data just by changing the "key". Note that modern drives are hard to truly obfuscate their contents as the bit density is so high that even grinding/chopping the platters will leave large enough fragments to be imaged! (e.g., I think a sector on a modern drive is like 0.010"; granted, that's just *a* sector but if the drive is full of names, birthdates and SSN's, that's *a* hit for each such imaged sector! :-/ ) Of course, you need to have something truly *worth* stealing for these sorts of Class II and III attacks (I wonder if, nowadays, a Class I attack could be successfully mounted; e.g., using facilities available at a university)
From: Martin Riddle on 25 Jun 2010 19:14 "Greegor" <greegor47(a)gmail.com> wrote in message news:8b85aa0c-39d8-4077-8dc0-3b5b15d9e077(a)x27g2000yqb.googlegroups.com... > Robert Baer, what was the most recent version of > Spinrite before Gibson sold it to Microsoft? > > I used to use Spinrite a LOT (system integrator) > back on the old MFM and RLL hard disks. > > Spinrite ceased to work it's magic and could > not even be safely run on IDE drives when they > came onto the scene. Did Gibson make a > version later on that DID work well on IDE (ATA) > drives? > Yes, I have, I think, 5.0 Worked for me in that it marked enough bad sectors to let me read the disk with out timeouts. Cheers
From: Robert Baer on 26 Jun 2010 01:42 Greegor wrote: > Robert Baer, what was the most recent version of > Spinrite before Gibson sold it to Microsoft? > > I used to use Spinrite a LOT (system integrator) > back on the old MFM and RLL hard disks. > > Spinrite ceased to work it's magic and could > not even be safely run on IDE drives when they > came onto the scene. Did Gibson make a > version later on that DID work well on IDE (ATA) > drives? > I have been using Spinrite 6.0 for ages; i thought it came from Gibson. It works on all IDE drives; FAT16, FAT32, extended partitions and NTFS partitions; cannot say regarding Unix-type partitions. Cannot say about SATA drives either. Should i try to get a "demo" SATA for checking? So M$ "stole" Spinrite off the market to prevent users from keeping their drives in good shape as well as preventing one from learning of imminent disaster and recovery. So typical of M$... No wonder why i never heard of an update to 6.0 ..
From: Robert Baer on 26 Jun 2010 01:44
Grant wrote: > On Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:57:11 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > >> Grant wrote: >>> On Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:40:18 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terrell(a)earthlink.net> wrote: >>> >>>> D Yuniskis wrote: >>>>> Hi, >>>>> >>>>> A 501(3)c that I am affiliated with received a donation >>>>> of several hundred ~80G SATA/PATA drives the other day. >>>>> They have allegedly (?) been bulk erased. I was asked, >>>>> today, if there is any way to make the drives serviceable, >>>>> again. >>>>> >>>>> I have not seen the drives or had a chance to play with >>>>> any of them. As "proof" that they were bulk erased, I >>>>> am told each drive bears a label: >>>>> ERASED >>>>> Magnetic data is completely erased. >>>>> Erased product can't be reused or repaired. >>>>> >>>>> When *I* take a drive out of service, I "bulk erase" them >>>>> (after "electronically" overwriting the existing data) and >>>>> then subject them to the 500G drop test :> But, I'll admit >>>>> I have never *tried* to recover data from a drive thusly >>>>> (ahem) "treated". >>>>> >>>>> My initial response to them was "recycle them, they're trash". >>>>> Was I too hasty? >>>>> >>>>> I would imagine all the servo information, low level >>>>> formatting, bad sector table, etc. are gone or corrupted >>>>> so putting these back into service would require "special >>>>> factory tools"... >>>> >>>> There is a software command for newer drives to erase all data. >>> Yes, but it takes too long to execute for commercial reality? >> >> Have you ever tried it? > > No, but the time quoted for secure erase in 'smartctl' report for HDD > is similar period to what writing zeroes to entire surface would take. > So I 'dd' zeroes to the HDD instead :) > > Grant. ??? 'dd' ??? Whazzat? |