how to redonate an old computer to a kid

T

torque63

Guest
http://www.ehow.com/how_4559633_redonate-old-computer-kid.html
 
On 2008-11-18, torque63 <torque63@gmail.com> wrote:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4559633_redonate-old-computer-kid.html
if you have any sensitive data on it erase it securely first.
formatting the drive does not always erase data.
 
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:06:37 -0000, Jasen Betts <jasen@xnet.co.nz> wrote:

On 2008-11-18, torque63 <torque63@gmail.com> wrote:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4559633_redonate-old-computer-kid.html

if you have any sensitive data on it erase it securely first.
formatting the drive does not always erase data.
Yet when i've tried to recover data after someone accidentally repartitioned one (without writing any data), no utilities managed anything whatsoever.

--
http://www.petersparrots.com http://www.insanevideoclips.com http://www.petersphotos.com

An English taxidermist is sweating his way through the Australian outback when he comes across a bar.
He staggers in between the beer swilling locals and, in his well educated voice, asks the bartender, "May I have a gin and tonic, please, my good man."
One of the locals says to his mates, "Geez, cobbers, what kind of a fucking man's drink is that?"
Then, turning to the Englishman, "Hey! You! Yes you, you fucking Pom! Gin and fucking tonic are you some fucking kind of a poofter or something?"
"Ac...actually," the Englishman, terrified, replies, "I'm a taxidermist."
"Oh yeah? And what's a taxidermist, then?"
"I mount d..d..dead animals."
"It's alright, cobbers," says the local, turning to his mates, "he's one of us!"
 
On Nov 18, 11:06 am, "Peter Hucker" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:06:37 -0000, Jasen Betts <ja...@xnet.co.nz> wrote:
On 2008-11-18, torque63 <torqu...@gmail.com> wrote:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4559633_redonate-old-computer-kid.html

if you have any sensitive data on it erase it securely first.
formatting the drive does not always erase data.

Yet when i've tried to recover data after someone accidentally repartitioned one (without writing any data), no utilities managed anything whatsoever.

Have you tried "dd"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_%28Unix%29

You can use it to write the hard drive partition to a single (huge)
file.

It might not be elegant, but if you have credit card / bank account #s
floating around your drive, dd can give this info to a bright kid with
too much time on his hands

Michael
 
<corgorant@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:887b185f-e1dd-4d39-b615-b9b5de61ba8f@z28g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
a low-level format followed by a high-level format, then install the
OS and perform a disk defrag. Norton's SpeedDisk used to wipe unused
sectors, but after '98 it doesn't do it anymore. Know of any that
still perform this menial task?
http://www.cbltech.ca/data-shredder.html
 
Peter Hucker wrote:
Yet when i've tried to recover data after someone accidentally repartitioned one (without writing any data), no utilities managed anything whatsoever.
If the directory listings were uniformly destroyed, file recovery tools
won't give you anything useful as output. But the data is still there,
you could still view the contents of text files (by inspecting the drive
sector by sector).

Cheers,
Nicholas Sherlock
-----------------
www.Newsgroup-Binaries.com - *Completion*Retention*Speed*
Access your favorite newsgroups from home or on the road
-----------------
 
a low-level format followed by a high-level format, then install the
OS and perform a disk defrag. Norton's SpeedDisk used to wipe unused
sectors, but after '98 it doesn't do it anymore. Know of any that
still perform this menial task?

Evil overlord of <a href=http://www.gamestotal.com> http://www.gamestotal.com
</a> <a href=http://uc.gamestotal.com> http://uc.gamestotal.com </a>
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href=http://3700ad.gamestotal.com&gt; http://3700ad.gamestotal.com </a>
<a href=http://manga.gamestotal.com> http://manga.gamestotal.com </a>
 
On 2008-11-18, Peter Hucker &lt;none@spam.com&gt; wrote:
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:06:37 -0000, Jasen Betts &lt;jasen@xnet.co.nz&gt; wrote:

On 2008-11-18, torque63 &lt;torque63@gmail.com&gt; wrote:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4559633_redonate-old-computer-kid.html

if you have any sensitive data on it erase it securely first.
formatting the drive does not always erase data.

Yet when i've tried to recover data after someone accidentally repartitioned one (without writing any data), no utilities managed anything whatsoever.
I've never had a problem getting data from a drives that have only
been formatted (unless the formatting overwrote all the sectors)
 
On 2008-11-19, corgorant@gmail.com &lt;corgorant@gmail.com&gt; wrote:
a low-level format followed by a high-level format, then install the
OS and perform a disk defrag. Norton's SpeedDisk used to wipe unused
sectors, but after '98 it doesn't do it anymore. Know of any that
still perform this menial task?
for a low level format you need to return the drive to the maker and
they need to open it in a cleanroom...

about the best that can be done with software is to overwrite all the
data (by writing to every sector)
 
On 2008-11-19, Nicholas Sherlock &lt;n.sherlock@gmail.com&gt; wrote:
Peter Hucker wrote:
Yet when i've tried to recover data after someone accidentally repartitioned one (without writing any data), no utilities managed anything whatsoever.

If the directory listings were uniformly destroyed, file recovery tools
won't give you anything useful as output. But the data is still there,
you could still view the contents of text files (by inspecting the drive
sector by sector).
Assuming the files are contiguous (not fragmented), not (badly)
effected by extra garbage bytes on the end, and the first block
of a file can be easily identified (all zip files start the same...)
it's quite practical to recover a file's contents after all the
metadata has been erased.
 
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:42:11 -0000, &lt;mrdarrett@gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On Nov 18, 11:06 am, "Peter Hucker" &lt;n...@spam.com&gt; wrote:
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:06:37 -0000, Jasen Betts &lt;ja...@xnet.co.nz&gt; wrote:
On 2008-11-18, torque63 &lt;torqu...@gmail.com&gt; wrote:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4559633_redonate-old-computer-kid.html

if you have any sensitive data on it erase it securely first.
formatting the drive does not always erase data.

Yet when i've tried to recover data after someone accidentally repartitioned one (without writing any data), no utilities managed anything whatsoever.


Have you tried "dd"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_%28Unix%29

You can use it to write the hard drive partition to a single (huge)
file.

It might not be elegant, but if you have credit card / bank account #s
floating around your drive, dd can give this info to a bright kid with
too much time on his hands
I see. Although how do you find a 16 digit number in a 50GB file?

Doesn't help me getting useful files back though.

--
http://www.petersparrots.com http://www.insanevideoclips.com http://www.petersphotos.com

Money can't buy you true love.
It does however put you in a good bargaining position.
 
On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:05:43 -0000, Jasen Betts &lt;jasen@xnet.co.nz&gt; wrote:

On 2008-11-19, Nicholas Sherlock &lt;n.sherlock@gmail.com&gt; wrote:
Peter Hucker wrote:
Yet when i've tried to recover data after someone accidentally repartitioned one (without writing any data), no utilities managed anything whatsoever.

If the directory listings were uniformly destroyed, file recovery tools
won't give you anything useful as output. But the data is still there,
you could still view the contents of text files (by inspecting the drive
sector by sector).

Assuming the files are contiguous (not fragmented), not (badly)
effected by extra garbage bytes on the end, and the first block
of a file can be easily identified (all zip files start the same...)
it's quite practical to recover a file's contents after all the
metadata has been erased.
Then why have 15 different utilities failed to produce anything at all? All that happened was a re-partition.

--
http://www.petersparrots.com http://www.insanevideoclips.com http://www.petersphotos.com

A woman goes into a sporting goods store to buy a shotgun.
"It's for my husband," she tells the clerk.
"Did he tell you what gauge to get?" asked the clerk.
"Are you kidding?" she says. "He doesn't even know that I'm going to shoot him!"
 
On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:50:08 -0000, Jasen Betts &lt;jasen@xnet.co.nz&gt; wrote:

On 2008-11-18, Peter Hucker &lt;none@spam.com&gt; wrote:
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:06:37 -0000, Jasen Betts &lt;jasen@xnet.co.nz&gt; wrote:

On 2008-11-18, torque63 &lt;torque63@gmail.com&gt; wrote:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4559633_redonate-old-computer-kid.html

if you have any sensitive data on it erase it securely first.
formatting the drive does not always erase data.

Yet when i've tried to recover data after someone accidentally repartitioned one (without writing any data), no utilities managed anything whatsoever.

I've never had a problem getting data from a drives that have only
been formatted (unless the formatting overwrote all the sectors)
What about deleting the partition?

--
http://www.petersparrots.com http://www.insanevideoclips.com http://www.petersphotos.com

Tip of the day: Do not fart in the bath while you have the runs.
 
On 2008-11-19, Peter Hucker &lt;none@spam.com&gt; wrote:
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:42:11 -0000, &lt;mrdarrett@gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On Nov 18, 11:06 am, "Peter Hucker" &lt;n...@spam.com&gt; wrote:
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:06:37 -0000, Jasen Betts &lt;ja...@xnet.co.nz&gt; wrote:
On 2008-11-18, torque63 &lt;torqu...@gmail.com&gt; wrote:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4559633_redonate-old-computer-kid.html

if you have any sensitive data on it erase it securely first.
formatting the drive does not always erase data.

Yet when i've tried to recover data after someone accidentally repartitioned one (without writing any data), no utilities managed anything whatsoever.


Have you tried "dd"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_%28Unix%29

You can use it to write the hard drive partition to a single (huge)
file.

It might not be elegant, but if you have credit card / bank account #s
floating around your drive, dd can give this info to a bright kid with
too much time on his hands

I see. Although how do you find a 16 digit number in a 50GB file?
strings &lt; 50GB_file | egrep '([0-9]{4}[ -]?){4}'

expect some false hits.

Doesn't help me getting useful files back though.
no, just the ones you'd rather bury.
 
On 2008-11-19, Peter Hucker &lt;none@spam.com&gt; wrote:
On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:05:43 -0000, Jasen Betts &lt;jasen@xnet.co.nz&gt; wrote:

On 2008-11-19, Nicholas Sherlock &lt;n.sherlock@gmail.com&gt; wrote:
Peter Hucker wrote:
Yet when i've tried to recover data after someone accidentally repartitioned one (without writing any data), no utilities managed anything whatsoever.

If the directory listings were uniformly destroyed, file recovery tools
won't give you anything useful as output. But the data is still there,
you could still view the contents of text files (by inspecting the drive
sector by sector).

Assuming the files are contiguous (not fragmented), not (badly)
effected by extra garbage bytes on the end, and the first block
of a file can be easily identified (all zip files start the same...)
it's quite practical to recover a file's contents after all the
metadata has been erased.

Then why have 15 different utilities failed to produce anything at all? All that happened was a re-partition.
Either they were crap or a re-partition was not all.
 
On 2008-11-19, Peter Hucker &lt;none@spam.com&gt; wrote:
On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:50:08 -0000, Jasen Betts &lt;jasen@xnet.co.nz&gt; wrote:

On 2008-11-18, Peter Hucker &lt;none@spam.com&gt; wrote:
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:06:37 -0000, Jasen Betts &lt;jasen@xnet.co.nz&gt; wrote:

On 2008-11-18, torque63 &lt;torque63@gmail.com&gt; wrote:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4559633_redonate-old-computer-kid.html

if you have any sensitive data on it erase it securely first.
formatting the drive does not always erase data.

Yet when i've tried to recover data after someone accidentally repartitioned one (without writing any data), no utilities managed anything whatsoever.

I've never had a problem getting data from a drives that have only
been formatted (unless the formatting overwrote all the sectors)

What about deleting the partition?
If it was merely that just run gpart.

that's what it's for, it'll get all your files back.
 
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:06:37 +0000, Jasen Betts wrote:

On 2008-11-18, torque63 &lt;torque63@gmail.com&gt; wrote:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4559633_redonate-old-computer-kid.html

if you have any sensitive data on it erase it securely first. formatting
the drive does not always erase data.
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hd[x][n] [x] = drive [n] = partition

Cheers!
Rich
 
On Nov 20, 12:40 am, Jasen Betts &lt;ja...@xnet.co.nz&gt; wrote:
On 2008-11-19, Peter Hucker &lt;n...@spam.com&gt; wrote:



On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:50:08 -0000, Jasen Betts &lt;ja...@xnet.co.nz&gt; wrote:

On 2008-11-18, Peter Hucker &lt;n...@spam.com&gt; wrote:
On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 09:06:37 -0000, Jasen Betts &lt;ja...@xnet.co.nz&gt; wrote:

On 2008-11-18, torque63 &lt;torqu...@gmail.com&gt; wrote:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4559633_redonate-old-computer-kid.html

if you have any sensitive data on it erase it securely first.
formatting the drive does not always erase data.

Yet when i've tried to recover data after someone accidentally repartitioned one (without writing any data), no utilities managed anything whatsoever.

I've never had a problem getting data from a drives that have only
been formatted (unless the formatting overwrote all the sectors)

What about deleting the partition?

If it was merely that just run gpart.

that's what it's for, it'll get all your files back.

Nice! I gotta practice that on an old drive...

Thanks,

Michael
 
On Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:06:15 +0000, Rich Grise wrote:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4559633_redonate-old-computer-kid.html

if you have any sensitive data on it erase it securely first. formatting
the drive does not always erase data.

$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hd[x][n] [x] = drive [n] = partition
That's a pretty good approximation; if you want to be truly paranoid, and
the drive was made after around 2001, you can do slightly better by
sending the drive an ATA "secure erase" command, e.g.:

hdparm --security-erase /dev/hd[x][n]
or:
http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml

This will also overwrite any "unmapped" sectors, i.e. those which have
been mapped out due to failure, or spare sectors for use when existing
sectors go bad.
 
On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:01:30 -0000, Jasen Betts &lt;jasen@xnet.co.nz&gt; wrote:

On 2008-11-19, corgorant@gmail.com &lt;corgorant@gmail.com&gt; wrote:
a low-level format followed by a high-level format, then install the
OS and perform a disk defrag. Norton's SpeedDisk used to wipe unused
sectors, but after '98 it doesn't do it anymore. Know of any that
still perform this menial task?

for a low level format you need to return the drive to the maker and
they need to open it in a cleanroom...

about the best that can be done with software is to overwrite all the
data (by writing to every sector)
I just delete everything I don't want people to see (and empty the recycle bin), then fill the disk with meaningless data (by copying unsensitive stuff over and over again until the disk is completely full). Then format it.

--
http://www.petersparrots.com http://www.insanevideoclips.com http://www.petersphotos.com

A woman storms into her boss's office with this complaint:
"All the other women in the office are suing you for sexual harassment.
"Since you haven't sexually harassed me, I'm suing you for discrimination."
 

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