Re: Degausser recommendations

[Chris Edwards <chris () ENG GLA AC UK>]

On Thu, 3 May 2007, Ben Woelk wrote:

| One of the drivers for purchasing a degausser is to be able to remove
| information from damaged hard drives before disposing of them or returning
| them to the computer vendor when erasure is not an option.

Yep - the concern is for a failed disk, where we can't erase it using
regular computer-based erasing software.  If the disk is returned to
vendor, they may fix it and thus have access to our data, and/or give it
to another customer.

Sort of related, does anyone know the effects of degaussing a working HD ?
Let's assume the data is indeed destroyed.  Is the drive then fine to
re-use, perhaps after a reformat?  Or, is it rendered unusable or
unreliable by the degaussing ?  If so then there would seem little benefit
in degaussing then returning to vendor, as such drive would be useless to
the vendor.  You might as well keep it (and take the cost hit).

Chris

--
Chris Edwards, Glasgow University Computing Service