[Year 12 IT Apps] HardDrive Repairs expert required

[ken price]

Hi folks,

We had an expert in computer forensics present at an ACS event here, on the
extremes of data recovery from hard drives.

The level of data that CAN be retrieved from a full disk crash is remarkable
(if you have the time and money).

Of particular interest was what happens to laptop hard drives that fail
under warranty. These go back to manufacturer and some are rebuilt (often
the electronics only fail) and re-issued as exchange warranty drives. Thus
with the right software and hardware it is often possible to retrieve
someone else's data from your warranty replacement hard drive. He had
examples of this (more common when hard drives were expensive of course).

The US security agencies at one stage adopted a physical solution to prevent
their failed drives ending up in someone else's laptop - a policy of firing
two bullets throught the drive platters.But even this turned out to be
insufficient. There are techniques where the damaged platters are removed
and specialised hardware used to measure remnant magnetism not just on the
surface of the disk but profiled into the magnetic surface. Magnetic force
microscopy and other techniques allow a chance of data recovery even after
massive physical damage.

As with viruses and antivirus software, the data recovery industry and data
deletion industries chase one another. Much of the literature in this area
is actually about how to wipe your data to make it unrecoverable, as that is
a serious security issue given the high rate of turnover of computer
hardware.

http://www.infoage.idg.com.au/index.php?id=1486101804 has a bit on this that
is probably useful for schools.

This probably doesn't help the original enquiry, but it is worth realising
that it takes quite a serious event to make data totally unrecoverable, but
quite a lot of money and time to actually do that low-level recovery.. Of
course, as Robert advises, it is far cheaper to take preventive action than
to try to recover from a massive failure. And with portable external hard
drives providing a terabyte of storage for the cost of 5 tanks of petrol,
there has never been a better time to back up!

Ken Price

TASITE http://www.tasite.tas.edu.au
and
DoE Tasmania


On 6/3/08, Robert Hind <robert at yinnar.com> wrote:
>
>  Oh dear!
>
> In most cases there is no way of retrieving the data if there has been a
> full "disk crash"
>
> Other more minor problems can sometimes be resolved and date retrieved, at
> cost of course!
>
> BUT PLEASE BACKUP all important data.
>
> Either via your school's net work for work data or via a USB connected
> external drive for your personal data.
>
> Robert Hind (Semi-retired)
> Ex Traralgon and Ashwood
>
>
>
>
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