On Thursday 19 January 2006 13:38, Allyn, Mark A wrote:
True, I agree that the only way to ensure 0% data recovery is melting the drives . . . .
How many people have a scanning electron microscope and would be willing to use it for this purpose?
At a computer recycling facility I am familiar with, they use the badblock application and overwrite the entire drive about five to six times with random data.
It is probably unlikely that someone would value the information enough to justify the expense of that level of recovery. However, people do keep information on their drives that are priceless. For example, what about the lady who takes a naked picture of herself and e-mails it to her boyfriend? What would she pay to make sure that picture is never recovered from a discarded hard drive? How embarrassing if her father found that picture in a google image search? I am certain that if people knew that the data could be recovered, even if it was expensive to do and very unlikely to occur, most of them would choose the just-to-be-on-the-safe-side option of melting their hard drive platters. For myself, I write pseudo-random data to old discs repeatedly so they are somewhat safe for temporary storage. Then periodically I pound them to smithereens with an old California framing hammer I have--very therapeutic--and then torch the platters.