full-disclosure - erase with magnet

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From: 313373 at gmx.net (Alexander Heidenreich)
Subject: erase with magnet

Am Samstag, 3. April 2004 15:36 schrieb B$H:

Hi,

> I'm interested in the original question about erasing a harddrive using a
> magnet. Is it possible to erase data on a hard disk drive with a powerful
> magnet, but then be able to use the drive and the PC again?

That depends. Some harddrives are having a part of the bios in a protected 
sector. If you delete it, the drive isn't usable any more. The next question 
is the strength of the magnet. You need the same or stronger magnetic field 
to  write to the surface than the magnetic field you've used to delete.
After all it's theoretical possible to read some fluctuations of the magnetic 
field to restore your deleted data. It's better to overwrite the harddisk 
several times with random data to be shure everything is really deleted.

> bye/B$H

Alex
-- 
The 5th commandment:

A Discordian is prohobited of believing what he reads.