BTW This is way safer than toying around with thermite, even if it lacks the glitz.

however, the awareness of data security, or rather the lack thereof is mind boggling.

what you can find dumped on landfill sites is a disgrace. it makes the odd scandal of some public servants losing their laptop look like a joke.

running one of the above programs over a disk you’re planning to dispose of or give away is the least you can do. personally i prefer do destroy the disk physically, for good measure.

but then, how many of us are taking email/IM encryption serious? (imagine the drain on the budget of said nameless or TLA agencies, if we did :)

Outside of that, I would have to say that the data is likely not coming back (and honestly if people that can fund that kind of forensics are after your data, there are much easier, and cheaper ways to get it).

In fact I would go so far as to say that if a disk were wiped with DBAN (using the DoD compliant method), there is not a single commercial data recovery firm that could get that data back, and I would be willing to pay for the recovery if they could. Now if someone seriously wants to take me up on that, I will have some requirements about verifying that the data was wiped (I’ll need to be present for the wipe).

I’ve worked closely with data recovery services many times over the years (as recently as last October), and know what they are capable of. Most commercial data recovery companies would be hard pressed to get back data wiped with a single all zero write pass.

That said, certain nameless government agencies have specific requirements for physical destruction of used hard disks, because hostile foreign governments could probably fund the previously mentioned single needle magnetic resonance recovery scanning, and even the possibility is worth the extra effort.

and i’m using both DBAN and KillDisk Pro. they do the job, KillDisk is around a bit longer than DBAN.

imho, no disk, wiped with either program, would stand a chance in a high level forensic examination. if you dump an old hard disk, take it apart and shatter the disks. just to be sure to be sure :)

Actually, the most important stuff I need is cosmetic, I need the 2 plastic front bezels, mostly. The front need not have an open Floppy drive slot because I’ve eliminated the floppy from my machine and thrown it as far as I physically can. On the other hand, if it were to have the sloppy flot, it won’t ruin my day. Just getting it, at all, would tickle me to pieces.
If I could also get my paws on a hard drive tray, it would be great. The machine I have was only outfitted with a single drive and I’d like the option of adding another reasonable-size drive in lieu of only installing a single huge drive. Maybe, when one them crashes, I’ll still have something left of the data stored.

Finally, if you thought there was a functional MoBo in the mix, I’d welcome having it around for when I fry the one I have. If not, I’m already looking at aftermarket options, as crazy as it may seem.

But Karl, I’ll tell you the serious truth, I will be glad to send you the price of what you feel your stuff is worth plus shipping costs for whatever you have related to the 3000. If you will shoot me a private Email, there is something I’d like to show you. What is more, please feel free to edit this this reply in any way you desire.

Thanks, again.

Mark

http://www.killdisk.com/

You’d be surprised at how many actual high school students respond, and then act like you just gave them a car!

Better than letting some recycling company profit from them.

Great tool by the way.

People then wonder how someone stole their identity! Hello! It is 2009 guys wake up and smell the identity fraud :)

When I say cleaned out I mean formatted reinstalled the OS and gave them away to local people/groups.

Of course I’m making light of a very serious situation.

While not an IT Pro, in the past year I’ve had 6 computers, in various working conditions, given to me. EVERY ONE of them have been full of people’s private data. As you said, this is 2009, and it makes me wonder how people cannot know, by now, that they need to delete at least their personal info, if not the entire drive.

On a separate subject, if you happen to have any Dimension 3000 parts laying around, I need them.

“As an IT Professional, I get used computers all the time (for some reason everyone I work with thinks I need every used machine I can get my hands on, especially if it has a “Designed for Windows 95!” sticker on it!).”

I feel the exact same way. I just thought it was pretty funny that all IT Professionals seem to get treated the same.