Erasing a hard drive with a tape eraser
December 20, 2009 by
Filed under erase hard drive
Tandy model tape eraser, being used on a 15K SCSI drive at OSDL … erase hard drive magnets
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The only way to recover the data in the case of degaussing the platters with a bulk eraser, short of restoring from a backup on a brand new hard drive, is to realign each and every magnetic particle back the way they all were.
Understand the physics behind how a hard drive platter stores data.
Speaking from physics, binary code in a hard drive is expressed as two different polar alignments of magnetic particles (north and south poles). When you degauss the platter, you are realigning all of these particles into one state (all either north or south).
When that happens, you’ve wiped out the data stored in binary notation because you’ve changed the binary pattern into all 1s or 0s.
“Data can still be recovered using very expensive, purpose built equipment, such as used in law enforcement labs.”
In this case, no it can’t.
When you hit an HD with a bulk magnetic eraser, you are wiping out the low level formatting.
All data stored on the platters are written in the high level. If you wipe out the low level, you also wipe out the high level.
A DoD wipe will write data over the entire drive so you cannot recover the data.
Data recovery after a single zero-pass is impossible. Yes, you can use special equipment to get to data written before the zero-pass but knowing which bits go with each other, and what order those bits were written is impossible. Goverment-standard secure erasure is a waste of time.
draging it behind a car for 300 miles–will erase it too
put into the blender?
Or, better yet, remove the hard drive’s platters, even full of sensitive data, walk over to a bench grinder, turn it on and proceed to turn the platters into dust. Good luck reconstructing those disks!
Or, in the case of a bulk eraser, a large, powerful degaussing electromagnet.
or in short…
giant magnet make data go bye-bye.
still wouldn’t do it. The only true way would be to first boot up into DBAN, which formats to government regulation. It formats full of 0s multiple times. Then open the HDD up. Pour some thermite mixture into the platters, and melt the platters. even dirt is still recoverable, because you would only be really affecting the top platters, leaving about 50% of the data there.
Data can still be recovered using very expensive, purpose built equipment, such as used in law enforcement labs.
If you really want to destroy a HD so nobody can ever read it, open it, throw some dirt onto the platters, then run it again for a few seconds.
R.I.P. HD
NO YOU!
Oh… Same here! :3
KILL EM ALLL!!!!
The hard drive was ruined as soon as you brought that magnet eraser, (even unplugged) within 03-04″s of that hard drive.
I actually have one of those… i’m tempted to try it…
I’ll try it on my old computer
Thank you for the complement =D
This makes me wonder why people invest so much time and money with data destruction firms and their shredders when all you really need to wipe one out effectively is a simple bulk magnetic tape eraser.
A bulk eraser will completely wipe out the drive’s low level formatting, rendering it completely useless for anything except scrap.
If it can do that, then, rest assured, any data that was in the high level formatting in that drive is completely eradicated with absolutely no chance of recovery.
i’m on your side! the vid was cool enough–cooler than those fucking people who ALWAYS HAVE TO COMPLAIN!!!!!!!!!!!
opps over-reacted again… sorry
fags, all of you
What was the end result?
I can only see the first 12 seconds
I suspect the drive would be functional also. If I want to get rid of a drive I think I might try this. I suspect that much like “erasing” a tape that it would leave a lot of artifacts.
That’s not true, if you perform a format the drive remains functional. Low level ftw
It will not only erase the data, it will also erase the file system and the servo track rendering the drive useless.