I have bad hard drive (under warranty).

[PM Martin]

I made this post last night and did not clarify what I was asking.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2359003

In order to receive the benefits of the warranty, the bad drive must be returned. I have alot of information from my business on it. That is why I asked if there is any means
to erase the disk without physically destroying it.
Should I just keep the disk and take the loss. For future, I have been informed that you can buy insurance from manufacturer that allows you to keep your bad drive.

[bemildred]

1. Deep delete:

http://windowsxptoolstips.blogspot.com/2007/12/deep-delete-make-your-file.html

[MineralMan]

2. That will only work if the PC recognizes the hard drive and can

write to it. That may not be the case. Judging from the ungrammatical writing of the description at the link you provided, I don't believe I'd trust the software to do much of anything.

[bemildred]

4. I don't really see how you are going to erase the drive without having it connected to something.

Since he wants to erase the drive, he has little to lose. But whatever, there are plenty of other choices.

[The Straight Story]

12. Which is why I always suggest a degausser. Pop it in and away the info goes.

Have used this on literally hundreds of HDs at the bank.

[bemildred]

18. That sounds like a good option, if it truly works.

I do not know, I have always just taken a sledge hammer to them, but then I don't return them.

[MineralMan]

13. There are many types of hard drive failure. Several of them

make it impossible to use software to erase the drive. That's what I'm talking about. If he can't access the drive, he's stuck. The data is still on the platter. Now, it's highly unlikely that anyone would go to the effort to recover that data if the drive was returned to get the warranty replacement, but I understand his concern.

Frankly, though, hard drives are priced low enough that if it's a real concern, he can just buy a new drive and destroy the platter of the defective one. That will end the worry about that business data.

If the drive is still functional, then, yes, software can be used to wipe it completely. Odds are good, though, that it is not functional.

[bemildred]

16. Yes, it's not clear, is it?

If he can't access the drive, he's stuck if he wants to keep it intact, or he can try the magnet trick, but I expect that would take one heck of a magnet. Or he could send them the fragments in a bag or something ...

If the electronics are working, he could connect it to a unix box and access it as a raw drive and zap it that way, but I assumed Windoze here.

[MineralMan]

3. What is the price of a replacement hard drive?

If you cannot access your current one, it will be almost impossible to do anything to remove the data or overwrite. That's a common problem when a hard drive fails.

If the price of the replacement is not too high, and the value of the data that cannot be erased is high, it may be best just to purchase the new drive, then physically destroy the defective one. The decision is yours.

[PM Martin]

17. A new drive will cost $210 US

[MineralMan]

20. Is your current hard drive accessible by the operating system in

your computer? That's the real question. If it is, there is software that can wipe it so the data cannot be retrieved. If it is not accessible, you have fewer options. Do you have $210 dollars? If so, there's your answer, and it's one that solves your problem. If not, give us more information so we can help you. We're probably not going to play 20 Questions with you to get the information.

[PM Martin]

21. I have an external reader. Certain parts of the drive can be read, some cannot.

[notadmblnd]

5. A magnet should do it. I would use a pretty big one. Maybe sandwich the drive

between two of them. But a magnet should do it.

[Fumesucker]

6. Use the low level format tool..

http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/

[HillWilliam]

26. Ah, just what I needed

along with a bootable CD image. I've got a drive with a bad sector giving me headaches. I hope a low-level format will force a remap when it hits that sector. I was gonna reinstall linux anyway since XP runs perfectly fine in VMWare. I don't have a use for a separate partition. The bad sector is in the XP partition, so if I blow the whole thing away, voila` I have room for "real" toys :)

[Aerows]

7. Repartition, Format, then encrypt it.

You can do an fdisk to repartition the drive, reformat it, and then zero it out, but that takes a while depending on how large the drive is. Alternatively, depending on what OS you are running, you could repartition it, format it, then encrypt it with a long password (15+ characters). It wouldn't be worth the trouble of someone attempting to glean anything off of it since, A) they would have to have forensic tools, B) they would have to break the encryption and C) most people don't have nearly enough time or desire to do that in IT.

Now that's IF it isn't mechanically or electrically faulty. If it is, then I wouldn't worry about it. It isn't as though they are going to mess around with the platters on the off chance that they might "find" something. That's an *extremely* intensive process and very expensive.

[theoldman]

15. I agree, it would not be worth the trouble unless there was some good porno on it.

[Warren Stupidity]

24. The disk is busted. The reformat is likely to fail as well.

There is some controversy over whether simply erasing the contents of disk sectors by e.g. writing the sectors to all zeros completely erases the contents. It probably does, but it might be the case that the prior contents can be at least partially recovered. All of which is just paranoia. Send the disk back to the manufacturer. They aren't interested in the data.

[HipChick]

8. There's a hard drive crisis..due to the flooding in Thailand...

getting hold of a replacement might be time delayed...

[deaniac21]

9. The chance of the tech being interested in your business = 0

[Dennis Donovan]

10. "Eraser" from download.com

http://download.cnet.com/Eraser/3000-2092_4-10231814.html

This will remove EVERYTHING w/ no chance of recovery

[theoldman]

11. Just what do you mean by having a bad hard drive?

Does it have a few bad sectors or does it not work at all. If it does not work, I would not worry about it. Not just any nerd can resurrect data from a drive when the data has been deleted. Personally I would bite the bullet and destroy it.

[PM Martin]

14. It has several bad sectors. I was able to retrieve some data from it.

The disk can only run for a few minutes a time though.

[Jumping John]

19. There are ways to revive a dead hard drive. Here are ten ways:

http://www.almufaddal.com/Ten-ways-to-revive-a-hard-disk-drive.html

[Warren Stupidity]

22. All the suggestions are 'put the disk in the freezer'.

That was the unintentionally silliest tech article I've read in a long time.

[HipChick]

25. Actually, The Freezer trick did work for me once..

When no software could revive it...I was able to then e-SATA it up to another external and get my data off

[Jumping John]

30. There is also HDD Regenerator that will repair bad sectors but

it will erase the data on the hard drive.

It may allow you to repair the drive so you can still use it.

$60.

http://store2.esellerate.net/store/ProductInfo.aspx?StoreIDC=STR793615240&SkuIDC=SKU9923428806&pc=

But the boot and Nuke software is the best to do away with the data.

[Warren Stupidity]

23. If you are seriously worried about your business data then physically destroy the disk.

Or use one of the previously mentioned methods to magnetically erase the disk contents and send it back to the manufacturer knowing that it is possible that your efforts fail.

[RoccoR5955]

27. Darik's Boot And Nuke

Is my choice in tools. If the drive has any readable areas, this will do the job. http://www/dban.org download the ISO image, and make a CD out of it. Boot to the CD, and follow the on-screen directions.

[madokie]

28. When it happened to me I simply ate the drive

In other words no way was I going to send my info off to someone in never never land. Cough up the 210 bucks and not worry anymore would be my suggestion.

[csziggy]

29. Is that the primary hard drive? The one with the operating system?

Or is it a slave drive?

If it is/was the primary drive, you may be able to either use a CD image operating system or get a new hard drive and install an OS on it and attach the damaged one as a slave to retrieve data and/or erase/encrypt it.

A lot of times if the boot sector is damaged the drive will not boot an operating system correctly, but it can operate just fine as a slave.

[HopeHoops]

31. If it is really "bad", you won't even be able to do a DOD erase. Keep the disk.