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Date:      Fri, 11 Oct 2024 13:42:21 +1100
From:      Dewayne Geraghty <dewayne@heuristicsystems.com.au>
To:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: How to zero a failing disk drive before disposal?
Message-ID:  <2544410a-8a99-4b2e-a194-c8326a2e0ddd@heuristicsystems.com.au>
In-Reply-To: <5117.1728561469@segfault.tristatelogic.com>
References:  <5117.1728561469@segfault.tristatelogic.com>

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A good question Ronald.  I worked for a provider of services for the 
statutory care of children (eg removed from parents). There are 
significant penalties for certain types of information loss.  We 
bench-drilled the hard-disks before sending them (out of our chain of 
custody) to a furnace.  Admittedly this is an extreme case and for the 
reasons already stated in this thread, there was no other way to ensure, 
say a name and location, were not available.

And yes, all machines have full disk encryption (FDE).

For personal devices we overwrite the device multiple times, though I'm 
interested in what a "ATA Secure Erase" does to a healthy storage device 
and whether all sectors are touched?




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