This is not a new issue, and it is a little disheartening to see that SO MUCH valuable data is still found on hard drives that have been retired, resold, recycles, or disposed.

Don't let any of your customers' hard drives leave with valuable data on them. If the drive still runs, you can use DBAN or ERASER to securely wipe the drive before reuse.

If the drive is not going to be reused, the easiest way to make sure no data can be recovered it do drill one (or better yet, two) holes through a part of the drive that will include the platters. A sledge hammer works, as well.

Now, there are more extreme measures, but we are assuming that we are not talking about drives containing military secrets that governments might be willing to spend millions to recover. The above measures are more than adequate for normal business purposes.

If you client does not think that there is any data of value on a drive, ask whether there are, or have ever been, any client, partner, or employee records on the drive. Most of the time, the answer will be either "yes" or "I'm not really sure". BETTER TO BE SAVE!

Dennis H in West Virginia, US

May 25