5 ms·

The world has moved on. You can’t transplant a platter into another reader, the old days of Guttman method don’t really apply anymore, density is so high that

The world has moved on. You can’t transplant a platter into another reader, the old days of Guttman method don’t really apply anymore, density is so high that outside of research settings it’s just not practical. That said I still put a drill through mine before disposing of them, because close to zero isn’t zero.

XorNot 6y ago
The reality though is we have no idea what's possible here: we just know what's not commercially viable to offer as a service. HDD recovery research is almost certainly a well-funded area of intelligence services, so I imagine their are a few electron microscopes and STMs which can do it. There's certainly no military data destruction guide which doesn't start with "shred the platter to this grain size".
layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
>You can’t transplant a platter into another reader Then why do I get tons of results on YouTube of people doing exactly that, when searching for “HDD transplant”?
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  I typed it into YouTube and every result (of the first dozen or so) is years old, including the most recent video citing an example where it's impossible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bml8ovt4nfI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bml8ovt4nfI
  - Godel_unicode 6y ago
    From 2020 (it's about drive savers): https://youtu.be/v0QkafslnrM https://youtu.be/v0QkafslnrM https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/data-recovery-services/devices-supported/ https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/data-recovery-services/d...
    - Judgmentality 6y ago
      I wonder if they can recover the HD the other video says is impossible.
      - gruez 6y ago
        If you actually watched the video that you've linked, you'll see that the platters in the drive has shattered. That's completely different from your initial claim of "You can’t transplant a (unshattered] platter into another reader"
        Judgmentality 6y ago
        ...in that case, can't you just shatter an HD platter to make it unrecoverable? If the goal is to prevent discovery, that seems pretty trivial. It's really unclear to me whether or not HDs are recoverable from the comments I'm seeing, and honestly I don't care that much so I'm going to stop commenting.
        gruez 6y ago
        > ...in that case, can't you just shatter an HD platter to make it unrecoverable? If the goal is to prevent discovery, that seems pretty trivial. ...only if the platters are glass. Many (most?) are made of metal. >It's really unclear to me whether or not HDs are recoverable from the comments I'm seeing, and honestly I don't care that much so I'm going to stop commenting. The same video also mentions him being able to salvage a hard drive that was in a multi-vehicle accident, because the platters haven't been shattered.
        Judgmentality 6y ago
        Well there you go. Buy an HD with a glass platter, shatter it, and now nobody can recover your data. Security secured. I was thinking of this from the forensics standpoint initially of erasing data from an HD (however many comments up it was about hiding data). I don't really care about the particulars of the method. If there's an easy way to store data and secure it, it sounds like it's impossible for that data to be recovered.
Godel_unicode 6y ago
It really hasn't, though. There are tons of data recovery services which will, for a fee, recover data from damaged hard drives. The process for recovering data forensically can be quite similar, depending on what the person did to "delete" it. https://www.ontrack.com/en-us/data-recovery/hard-drive https://www.ontrack.com/en-us/data-recovery/hard-drive https://www.gillware.com/hard-drive-data-recovery/scratched-platter-data-recovery/ https://www.gillware.com/hard-drive-data-recovery/scratched-...
gruez 6y ago
A drill is pointless because it only damages a tiny part of the platter. That might deter commercial recovery companies, but probably not the feds (depending on how big of a target you have on your back).
- noir_lord 6y ago
  Not when it shatters the glass/ceramic platters and shards fall out (which is nearly every drive I've put a drill through for the last while). Note: I do overwrite the drives (DBAN) then drill them and these are going to recycling anyway - it's quantifying the risk - I drill the drives because they usually have had customer or client data on them at some point so it's just good practice.
dogma1138 6y ago
I’ve done this a few months ago on a 6TB drive. You remove the cover, unscrew the platter, use sticky tape on the sides of the platters to remove them and place them in the donor drive... With an identical drive you don’t even need to worry about anything else the data will be there as nothing has happened. The “new” drive just worked it still does... Unless the plates are completely shattered you can recover the data. And I can guarantee you that the FBI has a data recovery lab that is much better than what I can do at home.

XorNot 6y ago

The reality though is we have no idea what's possible here: we just know what's not commercially viable to offer as a service. HDD recovery research is almost certainly a well-funded area of intelligence services, so I imagine their are a few electron microscopes and STMs which can do it. There's certainly no military data destruction guide which doesn't start with "shred the platter to this grain size".

layoutIfNeeded 6y ago

>You can’t transplant a platter into another reader Then why do I get tons of results on YouTube of people doing exactly that, when searching for “HDD transplant”?

Judgmentality 6y ago
I typed it into YouTube and every result (of the first dozen or so) is years old, including the most recent video citing an example where it's impossible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bml8ovt4nfI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bml8ovt4nfI
- Godel_unicode 6y ago
  From 2020 (it's about drive savers): https://youtu.be/v0QkafslnrM https://youtu.be/v0QkafslnrM https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/data-recovery-services/devices-supported/ https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/data-recovery-services/d...
  - Judgmentality 6y ago
    I wonder if they can recover the HD the other video says is impossible.
    - gruez 6y ago
      If you actually watched the video that you've linked, you'll see that the platters in the drive has shattered. That's completely different from your initial claim of "You can’t transplant a (unshattered] platter into another reader"
      - Judgmentality 6y ago
        ...in that case, can't you just shatter an HD platter to make it unrecoverable? If the goal is to prevent discovery, that seems pretty trivial. It's really unclear to me whether or not HDs are recoverable from the comments I'm seeing, and honestly I don't care that much so I'm going to stop commenting.
        gruez 6y ago
        > ...in that case, can't you just shatter an HD platter to make it unrecoverable? If the goal is to prevent discovery, that seems pretty trivial. ...only if the platters are glass. Many (most?) are made of metal. >It's really unclear to me whether or not HDs are recoverable from the comments I'm seeing, and honestly I don't care that much so I'm going to stop commenting. The same video also mentions him being able to salvage a hard drive that was in a multi-vehicle accident, because the platters haven't been shattered.
        Judgmentality 6y ago
        Well there you go. Buy an HD with a glass platter, shatter it, and now nobody can recover your data. Security secured. I was thinking of this from the forensics standpoint initially of erasing data from an HD (however many comments up it was about hiding data). I don't really care about the particulars of the method. If there's an easy way to store data and secure it, it sounds like it's impossible for that data to be recovered.

Godel_unicode 6y ago

It really hasn't, though. There are tons of data recovery services which will, for a fee, recover data from damaged hard drives. The process for recovering data forensically can be quite similar, depending on what the person did to "delete" it. https://www.ontrack.com/en-us/data-recovery/hard-drive https://www.ontrack.com/en-us/data-recovery/hard-drive https://www.gillware.com/hard-drive-data-recovery/scratched-platter-data-recovery/ https://www.gillware.com/hard-drive-data-recovery/scratched-...

gruez 6y ago

A drill is pointless because it only damages a tiny part of the platter. That might deter commercial recovery companies, but probably not the feds (depending on how big of a target you have on your back).

noir_lord 6y ago
Not when it shatters the glass/ceramic platters and shards fall out (which is nearly every drive I've put a drill through for the last while). Note: I do overwrite the drives (DBAN) then drill them and these are going to recycling anyway - it's quantifying the risk - I drill the drives because they usually have had customer or client data on them at some point so it's just good practice.

dogma1138 6y ago

I’ve done this a few months ago on a 6TB drive. You remove the cover, unscrew the platter, use sticky tape on the sides of the platters to remove them and place them in the donor drive... With an identical drive you don’t even need to worry about anything else the data will be there as nothing has happened. The “new” drive just worked it still does... Unless the plates are completely shattered you can recover the data. And I can guarantee you that the FBI has a data recovery lab that is much better than what I can do at home.