Refurbished Hard Drives

[bioradmeister at gmail.com (Dan Stadelman)]

Wow - I did not know you could even do this!  Thanks for the tip!

Dan

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 10:26 AM, iamnowonmai<iamnowonmai at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just to let you know - I just shipped a defective drive to seagate and faxed
> them a signed "Certification of Destruction for Secure Sites" form that they
> provided me. I kept the platters and sent them back the top cover of the
> drive, for RMA purposes. If the data is important to you, I would recommend
> pursuing that avenue.
> HTH
> iamnowonmai
>
> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Joel Folkerts <joel.folkerts at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > I strongly agree with Tim. While I trust that Seagate is handling the
> > drives appropriately, you aren't guaranteed that they won't doll this task
> > out to a sub who isn't as thorough. It's also not clear what they mean by a
> > "low-level" format. Keep in mind that the drive tracks which sectors are
> > usable and not - if a drive detects that a sector is unreliable, it will
> > mark it as bad (leaving the existing data intact) and never read or write
> > from it again. When a drive is subsequently wiped, it will skip past these
> > sectors leaving the existing data in place. Ideally, they would erase the
> > bad sector list and wipe every physical sector on the disk. Again, I
> > reasonably suspect that Seagate handles this properly but a degauser is
> > relatively cheap insurance.
> >
> > -Joel
> >
> > p.s. As a quick after thought, this is a very secure way of hiding data.
> > 1.) Erase bad sector listing; 2.) Wipe drive; 3.) Write data; 4.) Manually
> > mark those sectors as bad; 5.) Data is now hidden. As far as I know, this
> > process requires a some fairly expensive and specialized hardware but it is
> > capable.
> >
> >
> > "The path to hell is paved with good intentions."
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 5:16 AM, Tim Mugherini<gbugbear at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > We recently went through a similar line of questioning with our
> > > vendors/manufacturers and received a mix of responses. In the end we
> > > purchased a degauser. None of them seemed to care if drives were
> > > degaused before sending back.
> > >
> > > On 7/7/09, Dan Stadelman <bioradmeister at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > I think I was talking to tkrabec in IRC about how hard drive vendors
> > > > handle the data on defective hard drives that were returned under
> > > > warranty. So I sent a question off to Seagate to see what they do with
> > > > the data on defective drives...
> > > >
> > > > Obviously if there is something sensitive on the drive, then you
> > > > should destroy it - but their response was pretty interesting...
> > > >
> > > > Dan
> > > >
> > > > QUESTION:
> > > >
> > > > Hello,
> > > >
> > > > I was wondering what happens to the defective drives that are returned
> > > > to Seagate. I know you sell refurbished drives - is the data on the
> > > > returned drives wiped before you sell them a refurbished drives? If
> > > > so, how are the drives wiped.
> > > >
> > > > I am worried about someone being able to recover data off a returned
> > > > drive.
> > > >
> > > > RESPONSE:
> > > >
> > > > Thank you for sending your Seagate E-mail inquiry.
> > > >
> > > > Seagate takes measures to ensure the security of all of our customer's
> > > > personal, confidential data. When a drive arrives at our returns depot
> > > > facility, it will first be tested. During the first phase of testing
> > > > it is low-level formatted which completely wipes it of any and all
> > > > data from sector 0 to the last sector. As a returning defective drive,
> > > > if the drive is not in a functional state capable of a low-level
> > > > format, the drive is disassembled and the platters (where the data is
> > > > stored) are recycled. Once a platter is removed from the spindle of a
> > > > hard drive, the data is no longer readable by any means.
> > > >
> > > > Regards,
> > > >
> > > > Hassan Zouga
> > > > Warranty and Customer Support Escalation
> > > > Seagate Technology, Inc
> > > > 1 800 SEAGATE
> > > > ref:00D0hhzl.50036lvP0:ref
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