Bulk erased drives
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From: D Yuniskis on 23 Jun 2010 22:19 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"...
From: Martin Riddle on 23 Jun 2010 23:05 "D Yuniskis" <not.going.to.be(a)seen.com> wrote in message news:hvuf84$4pk$1(a)speranza.aioe.org... > 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"... HDD Low Level Format Tool Claims to be able to format the drive. List mfg's that are supported. Never tried it, but the low level formatting is done at the factory and I doubt it will work. Cheers
From: Greegor on 23 Jun 2010 23:32 On Jun 23, 10:05 pm, "Martin Riddle" <martin_...(a)verizon.net> wrote: > "D Yuniskis" <not.going.to...(a)seen.com> wrote in message > > news:hvuf84$4pk$1(a)speranza.aioe.org... > > 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"... > > HDD Low Level Format Tool Claims to be able to format the drive. List > mfg's that are supported. > Never tried it, but the low level formatting is done at the factory and > I doubt it will work. > > Cheers There IS a market on eBay for drives FOR PARTS. People commonly replace bad circuit boards and they need exact matches. Sometimes platters are swapped into good matching drives in efforts to retrieve information. I have no idea just what the success rate for this is. Clean room bypassed in hopes of just one read, perhaps a sector dump to be re-assembled elsewhere. On the other hand hand, if the bulk eraser used on the drives greats the strong magnetic flux of one that I saw/used decades ago, I would wonder if the circuitry wouldn't be destroyed by the induced voltage and current. Does anybody know what being run through a super strong cabinet style degausser does to small circuit boards?
From: Martin Brown on 24 Jun 2010 03:36 On 24/06/2010 03:19, 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. Select a few that have freely available low level tools available from the manufacturers or a third party website. You have nothing to lose by powering them up and putting them onto a *sacrificial* interface card. There is a possibility that the "bulk erased" drives also had their electronics "erased" or wrecked by the application of mains to the interface as well in which case they are beyond economic repair. > > 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? Possibly but be careful not to try them out in anything but a sacrificial old box that you do not care about. > > 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"... They are available Google "Low level format diagnostics" eg Hitachi/IBM http://www.hitachigst.com/support/downloads/ You might get lucky, but I would be a bit reticent about storing anything I was fond of on recovered drives unless they were in a RAID array with suitable redundancy to protect data. Regards, Martin Brown
From: Nobody on 24 Jun 2010 04:02
On Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:19:02 -0700, D Yuniskis wrote: > 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"... Depending upon the field strength, it may have demagnetised the magnets in the voice coil and/or motor, or even caused physical damage via forces on ferrous parts. First, I'd try just powering it up with no data connection. If that doesn't work, I wouldn't bother too much about the other aspects. It's a shame; unless you have wipe a hundred drives a day, there's no reason why you can't just erase the drive. I'm sure a lot of it is due to people having heard about Gutmann's paper but, being unable to make an informed assessment, opt for paranoia. |