Recovering hard disc

[woolybanana]

An elderly lap top has died and I have extracted the hard disc. Can anyone suggest how I might reuse it, svp? The password on the original computer has been forgotten.

[Théière]

Purchase a drive caddy of the correct type (IDE, SATA) and use that to access

[woolybanana]

Thank you Teapot. Does the loss of the original password make a difference to accessing the disc? I only really wanna wipe it.

[Théière]

It shouldn't do as its only the data you will be accessing and not the operating system which is on the working PC you'll plug into. You can still format the drive

[PaulT]

How has the laptop died - if it is a case of keep seizing up it could be that the outlet of the fan is blocked causing the laptop to overheat and cut out. If that is the case dismantling the laptop and cleaning the fan will give it a new lease of life.

[AnOther]

Frankly if the drive is more than 4 or 5 years old it will likely already be on borrowed time so I'd be cautious about repurposing it as an external backup facility.

If you need that then buy a proper external drive they are pretty cheap.

[Jonzjob]

You beat me to it Ernie. What size is it because if it's less than 100 megs then it is probably not worth too much trouble. Just see what you can get as en exernal drive 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_3?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=external%20hard%20drive&sprefix=ext%2Caps%2C459

If you have any files/folders/photos on it that you want to save and you haven't been a good boy and done yer backups then get a caddy for it, probably IDE and not SATA (IDE has a BIG multi pin socket that plugs onto the drive with a white, normally, power socket. SATA has 2 small sockets for power and data)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=external+hard+drive+2.5+caddy&rh=n%3A560798%2Ck%3Aexternal+hard+drive+2.5+caddy

Don't look for 'banana plugs, they don't have them

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=banana+connectors&rh=n%3A560798%2Ck%3Abanana+connectors

[6] [:-))]

[andyh4]

WB wrote

Thank you Teapot. Does the loss of the original password make a difference to accessing the disc? I only really wanna wipe it

Unquote

If you only "wanna wipe it" I suggest the most effective way is with a hammer and a screwdriver. Once you have hammered the screwdriver through the disc you can consider it as unreadable.

[AnOther]

No, just format it no problems.

[Théière]

[quote user="andyh4"]WB wrote

Thank you Teapot. Does the loss of the original password make a difference to accessing the disc? I only really wanna wipe it

Unquote

If you only "wanna wipe it" I suggest the most effective way is with a hammer and a screwdriver. Once you have hammered the screwdriver through the disc you can consider it as unreadable.[/quote]

Not sure it will works as a backup drive after that [;-)]

[Jonzjob]

Well, not until you take the scrwdriver out anyway [geek]

[PaulT]

Beware, just doing a reformat will not destroy the data. Let's say there is a file called 'document.doc' on it this will be renamed '?ocument.doc' and it is possible to recover it.

The screwdriver is one safe way or format and then write a simple program to fill it with rubbish and then format again.

[powerdesal]

I found an angle grinder worked well when I wanted to make a hard drive unreadable.

[Jonzjob]

There are a couple of security format modes on a Mac using OS X. It can format by writing 0s across the disk once, twice or thrice. It do take a while on a BIG disk though..

[AnOther]

[quote user="PaulT"]Beware, just doing a reformat will not destroy the data. Let's say there is a file called 'document.doc' on it this will be renamed '?ocument.doc' and it is possible to recover it.[/quote]That's not true Paul !

Fair enough a simple format does not really destroy data but after it a drive will appear to be empty although the data could be recovered by an unformat procedure. If you're doing it in order to reuse it it's more than adequate.

Even drilling holes through a HD only destroys data where you make a hole, the rest or it remains perfectly intact and capable of recovery with the correct equipment.

There was a case decades ago where a guy murdered his wife and police found and seized a floppy disc which they suspected contained incriminating documents but somehow the suspect hold of it and cut it up into several pieces with a pair of scissors, experts were still able to extract the data from each individual piece and recompile it with a few minor omissions - he got convicted.

A HD is exactly the same in terms of how data is stored except that it uses a solid disc, or discs, instead of a flexible medium, not unlike a CD or DVD actually although it doesn't use laser technology.

Here is a disc I removed from a scrap drive and with the right equipment somebody could recover every scrap of data from it and if there was a hole drilled in it only the data which had occupied the space where the hole was would be completely lost.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/tiocmGk.jpg[/img]

[Jonzjob]

A quick wipe over with a rare earth magnet would sort that problem Ernie.

Or give it a nice matt finish with some 80 grit emery. The surface would be too rough then for the heads to fly.

[AnOther]

I might do that if I even remotely considered it a 'problem' which I don't because it isn't [;-)]

[PaulT]

Ernie, where is it not true that all that happens is the first character is replaced by a '?'. You can then easily recover the data.

Recovering data from damaged discs is very expensive so unless it is extremely significant then eitjer use the angle grinder or as I said write a simple program to fill the disc with rubbish - seems though Mac users have a facility to do this.

[AnOther]

I already said Paul "a simple format does not really destroy data but after it a drive will

appear to be empty although the data could be recovered by an unformat

procedure"

There are any number of sites on the net which will confirm what I say, can you point to one which supports your claim.

Here is a description of what the different types of format do, note no mention of ? prefixes.

In ALL versions of Windows, if you use a QUICK FORMAT, what it actually

does is re-write only the file management structures on that Partition

on the hard drive. These are the places where Windows keeps track of

file names, sizes, dates, etc., and of the allocation of sectors (or,

more properly, allocation units) to each file as they are created. By

completely re-writing all these files to fill them with zeroes, a Quick

Format makes it almost impossible to find any file again, because all

index information on them is destroyed.

HOWEVER, a Quick Format actually does NOT re-write the major portion of

the drive - that is, all the sectors that actually contain the data. The

data are still on the drive, but all the info on which sector belongs

to which file, and in what order should they be assembled, is missing.

This makes it extremely difficult to re-assemble the files into their

original form, but there are several good software tools that can do

just that. They make use of known tendencies of Windows to store things

in a particular way, and of good deductive "guesswork" (not quite) to do

the reassembly.

A FULL FORMAT does all that same work first, and THEN goes through the

entire drive (that is, the Partition we're working on) and tests every

sector to make sure it works properly. By "test", I mean it writes some

known data to the sector, then reads it back and checks to make sure it

is correct. If any sector fails, Windows records it as a "Bad Sector" in

its own data file on the disk, and never uses it again. All of that

takes a LOT more time than a Quick Format. Now, here's where the

important differences between versions come in. Up to and including

Windows XP, the Full Format process does additional things. As it tests

each sector, FIRST it reads the existing data and stashes it away

safely, THEN it does its data write and re-read, and FINALLY it writes

that original data back. So even with this process, the old data still

exists in the sectors after a Full Format. BUT in Win 7 that saving and restoration of the old data is NOT

done; instead it completely fills every sector with just zeroes, thus

truly destroying all old data, as well as all the old file-tracking

records. After this process, very few ways exist to recover any of the

old data. There are a few VERY expensive and sophisticated techniques to

recover the weak old traces of the original signals in the sector under

the new zero entries, but even they can't recover 100%. And I don't

think any such tools are widely available to home users.

For people actually wanting to destroy old data, you can also get

so-called "Zero-Fill" utilities that will go through a complete hard

drive unit (including ALL Partitions if you so desire) and fill EVERY

sector with zeroes. And for those who really want to be sure to defeat

even the sophisticated recovery tools, there are good utilities that do

"military grade" wiping of the hard drive. These actually go through and

write to each sector not just zeroes, but a sequence of several number

patterns that collectively do remove even the faintest trace of any old

data signals so that NO software tool can get ANY old data from any

place. Once either of these are done you truly have an empty HDD, with

no Partition or Format information on it, just like a brand new drive.

By the way, do not confuse any of this with a "Low-Level Format". That

process is one that actually creates on a completely blank drive the

magnetic patterns that define the tracks of data and the sectors of each

track, with their own internal data validity check bits and so on,

leaving places for the data to be written later. A long time ago this

operation was actually done by early Format operations on hard drives,

and it still is done when a Format is done on a floppy diskette. But it

is NEVER done today on any hard drive by a computer user - you don't

even have the software utility to do the job, nor the knowledge of how

to do it. A Low-Level Format is done only in the factory that produces

the drive. Your brand new empty HDD actually does have meaningful

signals recorded on its disks to define the tracks and sectors. They

just contain no data at all until you use tools to Partition and Format

that unit.

[Jonzjob]

If I can put it a bit more simply Ernie. If you do a simple format then just compair it to taking the contents pages out of a book. The book contents are still there, all of the pages, and you can still read the book.

The Mac system asks just how secure you want your format. Simple and you loose the contents pages and your system has no idea what or where the date is. So it assumes here isn't any and tells you that you now have a blank disk. BUT, it can be retrieved.

If you want to go further then you have the choice of writing zeros once, twice or three times over the disk. As Ernie said, just once and there will be a trace of the old data, twice and less trace. Three times and not much left at all but big fat 000000000s

Three times on my 1tb disk on this MacBook and you can walk away for about 12 hours!!

The old saying rings true "Where there's a way there's a bunch of relatives". Something like that?

[AnOther]

You don't have to 'put it simply' on my account Jj !

Your second sentence somewhat contradicts your first and in fact it would probably have been better if you'd left it out because the second covers it perfectly adequately on it's own and echo's a Windows quick and full format.

[Jonzjob]

Sorry if the sounded condecending Ernie, it wasn't meant to, but it was the way it was explained to me in a former life. It was also for anyone who may think that doing the type of format that is most common is safe..

If you really want a way that's safe then the way to do it is to have mulitple disks and 'skatter' all the files and folders across all of them. It's the way that the IBM AS400 used to do it. 2k bits of data sent tout to all of the disks on the system. It makes it very quick because you aren't waiting for a large file to be written to a single disk, it'sw ritten in parallel to all. The only problem is that if you don't have good backups then you loose everything because some of every file is on the failing disk [:-))] Justa ask one of the BAC companies at Bristol. They didn't think backups mattered?

[woolybanana]

I have just spent a pleasant hour wiping out the crud on the disc I have recovered. BUT, for certain programmes it keeps telling me I have to have permission to wipe them. Can anyone suggest a way to get round this, please.

[Quillan]

Right click on the folder and look at 'Properties'. Down the bottom there is a box that says 'Read Only'. If this is greyed out or has a tick in it then click on it till it shows clear, click 'OK' and try again. If that does not work sometimes I have found that if you go 'down' the 'tree' or folder if you want and try and delete at each level. Sometimes you get just one file in a folder several levels down and once you delete that (it seems to delete normally without a problem) you can delete the 'top' folder without a problem. Hope that helps. Alternativly copy off what you want to the other disk then format it.

[woolybanana]

I shall try that, Quillan. Thank you.