Comments on: Be careful with your Sun disk RMAs! http://www.vmunix.com/mark/blog/archives/2005/12/02/be-careful-with-your-sun-disk-rmas/ by Mark Mayo Wed, 8 Oct 2008 06:46:20 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 by: JBrickely http://www.vmunix.com/mark/blog/archives/2005/12/02/be-careful-with-your-sun-disk-rmas/#comment-9952 Sun, 22 Jan 2006 03:22:39 +0000 http://www.vmunix.com/mark/blog/archives/2005/12/02/be-careful-with-your-sun-disk-rmas/#comment-9952 Forget wiping the drive, better to take it out back, did a hole fill with clay and place the drive at the bottom of the hole. Next take a mixture of Iron Oxide and Aluminum shavings 1:3 ratio and pour into a clay flower pot. Place the pot full of your homemade THERMITE above the drives and ignite with a common 4th of July sparkler. Not forgetting to get your butt as far away as you can 200 yards should be safe. The heat will be directed through the flower pots hole in the base at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and will literally liquify the hard disk(s)! THERMITE is incredible stuff and nothing will put out the fire until it burns itself out! You can literally burn straight through an automobile engine block in seconds! No more data baby! Of course, don't even think about doing this if you are in say Oklahoma this time of year (brush fire country, etc) no need to burn down the county. Forget wiping the drive, better to take it out back, did a hole fill with clay and place the drive at the bottom of the hole. Next take a mixture of Iron Oxide and Aluminum shavings 1:3 ratio and pour into a clay flower pot. Place the pot full of your homemade THERMITE above the drives and ignite with a common 4th of July sparkler. Not forgetting to get your butt as far away as you can 200 yards should be safe. The heat will be directed through the flower pots hole in the base at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and will literally liquify the hard disk(s)! THERMITE is incredible stuff and nothing will put out the fire until it burns itself out! You can literally burn straight through an automobile engine block in seconds!

No more data baby! Of course, don’t even think about doing this if you are in say Oklahoma this time of year (brush fire country, etc) no need to burn down the county.

]]> by: Doug http://www.vmunix.com/mark/blog/archives/2005/12/02/be-careful-with-your-sun-disk-rmas/#comment-9680 Tue, 06 Dec 2005 13:56:23 +0000 http://www.vmunix.com/mark/blog/archives/2005/12/02/be-careful-with-your-sun-disk-rmas/#comment-9680 I have heard the key to using magnets to destroy data is to cycle the field (reverse poles, modulate the power, move the field around). if you just put a massive magnet on a drive it will toast the drive for sure, but it will do it in a predictible fashion where it may be possible to reassemble it (with external hardware/physical scanning of the platter). The best way I have heard to totally distroy your data is to grind off off the surface of the platter and never RMA a failed drive (what is your data truly worth?). even if you bust up the platter, you have to have pieces less than 1mm or a rescan is possible (beware the three letter gov agencies) Cheers I have heard the key to using magnets to destroy data is to cycle the field (reverse poles, modulate the power, move the field around). if you just put a massive magnet on a drive it will toast the drive for sure, but it will do it in a predictible fashion where it may be possible to reassemble it (with external hardware/physical scanning of the platter). The best way I have heard to totally distroy your data is to grind off off the surface of the platter and never RMA a failed drive (what is your data truly worth?). even if you bust up the platter, you have to have pieces less than 1mm or a rescan is possible (beware the three letter gov agencies)
Cheers

]]> by: mark http://www.vmunix.com/mark/blog/archives/2005/12/02/be-careful-with-your-sun-disk-rmas/#comment-9640 Tue, 06 Dec 2005 06:04:09 +0000 http://www.vmunix.com/mark/blog/archives/2005/12/02/be-careful-with-your-sun-disk-rmas/#comment-9640 If the drive is working then DBAN looks like the right tool. Thx for the link guys! I'll have to check the fine print of my service contract to see if I'm allowed to physically destroy the platters before sending the dead disk back! If the drive is working then DBAN looks like the right tool. Thx for the link guys!

I’ll have to check the fine print of my service contract to see if I’m allowed to physically destroy the platters before sending the dead disk back!

]]> by: Doug http://www.vmunix.com/mark/blog/archives/2005/12/02/be-careful-with-your-sun-disk-rmas/#comment-9634 Mon, 05 Dec 2005 20:56:42 +0000 http://www.vmunix.com/mark/blog/archives/2005/12/02/be-careful-with-your-sun-disk-rmas/#comment-9634 Dban is what I use to wipe drives. At work we don't have support on anything, so the drive is taken out, put in a storage locker 3 floors under ground and left there to rot. if/when they are found the data is either useless or the drive is just totally unusable. But Dban is the way to go if you want to defeat all but the three letter government agencies. Most non-gov agencies don't have the money, gear or time to recover from the highest levels of dban erasure. I don't sell/ebay anything that has a drive in it until it has run Dban, at least once. Cheers Dban is what I use to wipe drives. At work we don’t have support on anything, so the drive is taken out, put in a storage locker 3 floors under ground and left there to rot. if/when they are found the data is either useless or the drive is just totally unusable.

But Dban is the way to go if you want to defeat all but the three letter government agencies. Most non-gov agencies don’t have the money, gear or time to recover from the highest levels of dban erasure. I don’t sell/ebay anything that has a drive in it until it has run Dban, at least once.
Cheers

]]> by: Saint Aardvark http://www.vmunix.com/mark/blog/archives/2005/12/02/be-careful-with-your-sun-disk-rmas/#comment-9633 Mon, 05 Dec 2005 18:35:18 +0000 http://www.vmunix.com/mark/blog/archives/2005/12/02/be-careful-with-your-sun-disk-rmas/#comment-9633 <a href="http://dban.sourceforge.net/" rel="nofollow">DBAN</a> is one way. Another, and one that I'm increasingly leaning toward, is simply to take the damn thing apart and crack the platters with pliars. Admittedly, I'm using cheapo P/SATA disks rather than SCSI, but it's pretty effective... DBAN is one way. Another, and one that I’m increasingly leaning toward, is simply to take the damn thing apart and crack the platters with pliars. Admittedly, I’m using cheapo P/SATA disks rather than SCSI, but it’s pretty effective…

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