Why Hard Drive Destruction is Important in Your Business

1. Why Hard Drive Destruction is Important in Your Business When businesses require computer upgrade, we store the working parts and the throw away the non-working parts. From all these parts, hard drives require data erased first because if it falls in the wrong hands they might risk data breach. Most of the time, their solution is to delete all the important folders, empty the recycle bin, or format the data before throwing it away. And if a hard disk drive (HDD) is old or damaged, we throw the disk away because we know that if we can't use it, so will they. Using that method, data are safe right? Wrong. For more information, visit: http://www.xtremeworx.com.au/products.php Why can broken HDD still breach business security? A hard disk is a magnetic media that stores data in bits. It stores bits of data in sectors where the smallest part has the most number of sectors than the largest part in the disk. In the disk, there is a sector that operating systems do not read. When a file is permanently deleted (empty recycle bin/trash), it removes its pointer in the memory. Simply put it as: "you forgot something but you know it's there". The area containing the deleted data is now marked as free space, when a new file is save, the data is overridden. When you forgot something but you know it's there, there will be a chance that you will remember it right? In hard disks, to remember the data permanently deleted, we use data recovering software. These kinds of software look for the sectors deleted files are then recovers any recoverable files. How easy it is to recover data? It is so easy that even a kid can do it. What's more, data recovering software are free online. But data recovering software do not work on broken drives because drives need to read and we can't use the software without an operating system. So we are safe if we throw damaged drives right? Still no. Why? Because of the fact that disks magnetically store files. When a disk becomes broken (except when thrown hundreds of feet from the ground), only the chip or other mechanical parts inside the drive is the reason why it is malfunctioning. The platters (the disk where it saves all the files) remains working because the disk is in a hard case and it has no mechanical nor electrical parts. Forensics use only the platters to recover deleted files on a broken disk. But even non-experts can recover files because even the procedures on how to open, and manually recover deleted files are widespread online. What can businesses do? Businesses wanting to sell or donate usable hard disk or throw away damaged disks must sanitize disk first. Sanitation of a disk is a process to permanently remove data residing inside a disk. There are two types of HDD sanitation:

2. Data Wiping Data Wiping is a process to irreversibly delete data using methods that does not require to tinker the disk drive. It removes data residing in the free space area. The process happens during boot time, after the operating system boots or when it is not connected to the computer(degaussing). This is a recommended method if businesses want to sell, donate, or reuse the drive.