On 17 Nov 2014 at 14:00, Ed Greshko wrote: From: Ed Greshko <ed.greshko@xxxxxxxxxxx> Date sent: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 14:00:26 +0800 To: Community support for Fedora users <users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: Clearing the unallocated disk space Send reply to: Community support for Fedora users <users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > On 11/17/14 12:58, Tim wrote: > > There have been cases of people getting refurbished drives which did > > have the previous owners data on them. > > Do you have first hand knowledge of this or is this something you've just heard about? > > The reason I ask this is I have a friend that worked at WD in the HD manufacturing and refurbishment area a few years back. I had asked him about this very same thing. He indicated that WD had very strict quality control and he couldn't think of a way it would pass through their processes with previous data still intact. > > Or, maybe you're talking about cases where the drives aren't actually going back to the manufacturer? > Back in 2006 at Defcon there was a presentation on recovering data from disks, and it went from simple tasks of using software to actually physically opening the disks. The middle section covered repairing disks by replacing the controller board. I've actually been able to get data off disks that have gone bad by getting a disk on Ebay with the same board, and swapping it out. Don't know if manufactures would do with a disk with a bad controller board, or if they were to old to be actually resold after repairing them. Someone may be able to buy these disks, and take working parts from a couple to get some working. Long ago, when I did an intership at a TV station, we had a big degausser to erase the 3/4 inch tape cartridges. Would be nice to have that done with disks that they can not repair to make sure. > -- > If you can't laugh at yourself, others will gladly oblige. > > -- > users mailing list > users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > To unsubscribe or change subscription options: > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users > Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct > Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines > Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org +----------------------------------------------------------+ Michael D. Setzer II - Computer Science Instructor Guam Community College Computer Center mailto:mikes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx mailto:msetzerii@xxxxxxxxx http://www.guam.net/home/mikes Guam - Where America's Day Begins G4L Disk Imaging Project maintainer http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/ +----------------------------------------------------------+ http://setiathome.berkeley.edu (Original) Number of Seti Units Returned: 19,471 Processing time: 32 years, 290 days, 12 hours, 58 minutes (Total Hours: 287,489) BOINC@HOME CREDITS ROSETTA 21797820.213539 | SETI 37772030.972440 ABC 16613838.513356 | EINSTEIN 40598582.375899 -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
