[ILUG] wiping a faulty hard disk

[Gary Pigott]

From: "Timothy Murphy" <tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie>
> On Thu 09 Aug 2007, O'Leary Patrick wrote:
>
>>          I have a few faulty hard disks which i need to return to the
>> supplier for under guarantee replacement. The problem is that they have 
>> an
>> OS installed on them along with some sensitive data.
>
> I don't understand this passion for deleting data on old disks.
> Is it really likely that the disk manufacturer will scan you disk
> and steal your secrets?


Tim,

It doesn't matter much if you're a home user storing MP3s and p0rn, but 
things are a bit different in the commercial IT community. Read a little 
thing called The Data Protection Act 1988 and you'll see why. The 
manufacturer might not give a damn what you're storing, but if someone who 
might have personal information about them stored on that disk finds out 
that you're doing it, they can make a complaint. Complaints usually end up 
with at worst a public warning, but bad press is death in some businesses.

Likewise some professions (legal, medical, financial) have their own 
regulations on handling confidential data. Serious violations there can get 
very expensive indeed.

Gary