More money from Hard Drives - Data recovery boards

OK... Thought it was time to share another little gem here.

If you are contracted to destroy all hard drives you get in and do not have permission to sell them as working drives (which would be the better option), consider testing and then selling the printed circuit boards for data recovery.

You can get from $10-$50 for these boards, depending on how rare they are and who is looking for them. If you get newer drives or server drives you will be able to sell the boards for good money. Put them on Ebay and see what happens... that is, if you have some of your free listings left.

It will be very hit or miss... but it may be worth it.

You might also be selling them to people who are using them for illegal purposes. Be careful.

Explain that? How would they use a recycled pc board illegally? Not that it bothers me that you said that, just strange concept to me.... that's all.

To recover information from a hard drive... Isn't the reason for destroying them to ensure that nobody can recover any data from them? Someone who knows what they are doing could potentially recover sensitive information.

I'm not saying we should be paranoid but the potential is there.

no info is stored on the board, only the disk inside

It's common practice to change a HD board in efforts to retrieve data. There are many bonafide companies who charge absorbitive rates to do so. Last I checked rates for this sevice(several years ago) a basic charge was in the $800-$1000 range. If you are not restricted in reusing the complete drive, old drives can be sought after for just this purpose (if they are hard enough to come by), it just depends on what drive they are attempting to repair, and which parts they need to do so. You will however, find more drive failures are due to mechanical malfunction by far, than are due to a bad board.

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Originally Posted by AuburnEwaste

To recover information from a hard drive... Isn't the reason for destroying them to ensure that nobody can recover any data from them? Someone who knows what they are doing could potentially recover sensitive information.

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Yeah, the data is on the platters and the platters should be physically destroyed... no data on the pcbs...

I have repaired 2 that had the boards fry and we used a donor drive to get them up and running... about the only repair you can do without opening them. I have tried a platter swap and had very bad results. We have sent drives into recovery shops and spent over $2000 for the service...

The best bet you will have with these are newer drives... like 100GB or better... it's a shame killing drives like that...

I believe this is incorrect. Most hard-drive PCBs have between 2mb-16mb of memory stored in a cashe. 2mb is nothing in terms of pictures, vid, etc, but is plenty of space for documents containing SSN, credit cards, etc. If what i said is correct, than information could be accessed via the pcb. I always drill a hole in them before recycling. Here is a link that may help http://www.ehow.com/facts_5137741_cache-hard-drive.html

I'm not talking about taking information off the PCB. I meant they could use it to recover information from another drive with it. I didn't mean to cause a fuss about it, just something to think about.

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Originally Posted by AuburnEwaste

I'm not talking about taking information off the PCB. I meant they could use it to recover information from another drive with it. I didn't mean to cause a fuss about it, just something to think about.

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No fuss here. I would just caution the OP from selling HD PCB's from drives they promised to destroy the infromation from within. More than likely nothing would ever come of it. But when dealing with information one needs to hedge from liability.

my 44 magnum works every time on these, puts a nice big hole thru all of the platters

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Originally Posted by Jeremiah

I believe this is incorrect. Most hard-drive PCBs have between 2mb-16mb of memory stored in a cashe. 2mb is nothing in terms of pictures, vid, etc, but is plenty of space for documents containing SSN, credit cards, etc. If what i said is correct, than information could be accessed via the pcb. I always drill a hole in them before recycling. Here is a link that may help What Is a Cache on a Hard Drive? | eHow.com

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Trying to recover data from a HD buffer would equal trying to remove information from a stick of RAM. Both are emptied with each power down. This is why in a system crash everything you'd been writing is lost, due to it having been stored in RAM (either on the main boards RAM or the HDs RAM makes no difference), it's gone.

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Trying to recover data from a HD buffer would equal trying to remove information from a stick of RAM. Both are emptied with each power down. This is why in a system crash everything you'd been writing is lost, due to it having been stored in RAM (either on the main boards RAM or the HDs RAM makes no difference), it's gone.

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Correct...if there is a residual data left in memory on power down (like a ghost stuck in time), it is totally gone when renergized on power up in my opinion. So, maybe CIA or FBI could do something, but I doubt if a random drive from a random unknown sorce would have money thrown at it to see if they had a SSN that had good credit or a bank account that had money in it. But, the chance is there. Technally a platter with a hole on it still has 95% of its data on it. THey might not spin up, but you can extract the data from it by pulling a magnetic image of what is left. That would cost a lot, but the chance is there.

I hope I am not sounding smarty pants, but I am trying to indicate the statistics behind data destruction. Plus I had a kinda crappy day, so sorry.

Pulling the control board and deguassing, or shredding is the best bet for data destruction. It leaves the most useless or unpredictable intact remaining data. Also, software triple write stuff if you think it has a resale value.

Hmmm... From what I remember, volatile hard disk drive cache is used as a buffer. Without being powered up this will be empty. Non-Volatile memory on the hard drive board tells the board how to read that platters... this info is locked in and can't be overwritten without knowing what you are doing and it doesn't hold any user data... just machine code... just like the bios on the motherboard.

I am contracted to destroy hard drives, first I do a wipe on the drive, then I disassemble them, then I degauss the platters, and finally I shear the platters into at least 4 parts. All the platters are mixed together in a tote and taken in for aluminum scrap... Yes, if someone could find all the parts of the platters and study them under an electron microscope, and they can reverse all the other things I do, they may be able to pull data... but not likely. I have no worries about the PC boards leaking anything...

If a data thief were to gain access to personal data with my boards it wouldn't be because of anything I did, it would be because of the person who thought all they had to do was pull the pc board off a drive to make it secure. That would be a very bad practice. I hope no one here does that and thinks it's sufficient... at least hit the drive with a sledge if you don't want to open them... just to screw up the bearings and bend the platters...

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Originally Posted by wdaddy

Hmmm... From what remember is volatile hard disk drive cache system is used as a buffer. Without being powered up this will be empty. Non-Volatile memory on the hard drive board tells the board how to read that platters... this info is locked in and can't be overwritten without knowing what you are doing and it doesn't hold any user data... just machine code... just like the bios on the motherboard.

I am contracted to destroy hard drives, first I do a wipe on the drive, then I disassemble them, then I degauss the platters, and finally I shear the platters into at least 4 parts. All the platters are mixed together in a tote and taken in for aluminum scrap... Yes, if someone could find all the parts of the platters and study them under an electron microscope, and they can reverse all the other things I do, they may be able to pull data... but not likely. I have no worries about the PC boards leaking anything...

If a data thief were to gain access to personal data with my boards it wouldn't be because of anything I did, it would be because of the person who thought all they had to do was pull the pc board off a drive to make it secure. That would be a very bad practice. I hope no one here does that and thinks it's sufficient... at least hit the drive with a sledge if you don't want to open them... just to screw up the bearings and bend the platters...

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You are going way over board and wasting time and money. With todays technology a single deep level wipe is enough to erase all data on a hard drive permanently as long as all sectors were written over. Because data on drives is so condensed even using an electron microscope data will be almost impossible to recover (cost prohibitive).

The current DOD specs have not been updated since the 80's when this type of recover was possible. On magnetic tapes and smaller drives.

Degassing the platters isn't necessary if you sheer them. Neither is sheering them if you Degas them.

Simply taking the drives apart and either sheering or degassing is more that enough to destroy the data beyond recovery. Hell your finger prints on the patter are enough to destroy the data beyond readability with out FBI/NSA level equipment and your every day identity thief will not have access to the millions for that equipment, the knowledge of how to use it or access to the labs at the FBI/NSA.

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first I do a wipe on the drive, then I disassemble them, then I degauss the platters, and finally I shear the platters into at least 4 parts. All the platters are mixed together in a tote and taken in for aluminum scrap...

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What are you using to shear the platters ?

Hospitals and clinics want to make sure... so yep, it's overkill. Enough to satisfy Hipaa.

I use a bench mounted metal shear to cut them. It goes through them very easily. Also works good on your gold fingers and ide cables.

Like this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Northern-Ind...item4d04693366

Maybe a stupid question but want to make sure what I am doing is ok. I hit the hd with a ballpein cracking the alum case and breaking part of the platter. Then I take a chunk of the platter and throw in my alum bucket and then turn in the hd to my buyer. I do this so I am not losing too much weight from the hd. By doing this am I doing enough to ensure that the platter is made unreadable because of the missing piece? I don't get a large volume of hd's when I get towers and servers so this is the quickest way for me to ensure that the hd's are unreadable.

arnt there companies out there that shred drives that would pay you for them or take them for free, they have to be making a killing on the scrap hard drive boards plus all the aluminum and stainless they generate? i would have a few guys tearing boards off and another one feeding the shredder

Data Security - Shredder - YouTube

my method of choice, remove the board then have at it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0x6gkZmqcc

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Originally Posted by BRASSCATCHER

Maybe a stupid question but want to make sure what I am doing is ok. I hit the hd with a ballpein cracking the alum case and breaking part of the platter. Then I take a chunk of the platter and throw in my alum bucket and then turn in the hd to my buyer. I do this so I am not losing too much weight from the hd. By doing this am I doing enough to ensure that the platter is made unreadable because of the missing piece? I don't get a large volume of hd's when I get towers and servers so this is the quickest way for me to ensure that the hd's are unreadable.

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There's NO stupid questions, those are just the easiest ones to answer ; ) In light of what's been said on this thread alone, I believe you should be relatively worry free. I've also read in indepth studies that using the hammer was more than enough. I have been through a LOT of computers, and drives over the last ten or 12 years, including ones from FBI, Homeland Security, Dept Commerce, Census etc, and never lost a moments sleep worrying about their data being retrieved or "stolen". The horror stories are most likely related to gross negligence on the part of the "victim" (or maybe just plain ignorance). I've have a NASA hard drive nearly ten years (it snuck past them inside a large unit, I didn't know it was a HD either until beginning to dismantle it), and this thing weighs 35 pounds! I've advertised it on both Ebay and Craigslist numerous times, but the shipping alone was prohibitive(if anyone had wanted data, and won't pay shipping, how will they spend thousands to retrieve it). Ohwelll! I almost believe for someone to connect with someone's important data, they'd need to stalk the original owner until they disposed of their computer, then wait until you removed it from their storage, then stalk you until you disposed of the HD, then stalk your buyer until, ohboy!! Why didn't they just follow the person to the ATM in the first place, and grab the receipt he tossed on the sidewalk as he was walking away??

Well, Bear, some people are just paranoid. and i guess it only takes one time of being right to make a lifetime of paranoia worth it.

Personally, i just landed a deal with my company for data destruction of a couple of hundred drives and they spent several weeks going back and forth with me over the exact methods and procedures of destruction, as well as the documentation. I even had to dismantle one today in front of 3 people to show them the process. It worked out, and now i got the deal

With the fine for lost data at least $1.5 million, yeah, it pays to be careful when dealing with patient data.

It took me a year to land my latest hard drive contract and I work at the hospital I'm going to be doing this for. I have access to way more data then these drives will ever hold. I work in IT and directly with all the patient data, so they already trust me. I'm sure that helped them award me the contract.

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Originally Posted by jghilino

arnt there companies out there that shred drives that would pay you for them or take them for free, they have to be making a killing on the scrap hard drive boards plus all the aluminum and stainless they generate? i would have a few guys tearing boards off and another one feeding the shredder

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They don't take anything for free. They charge $10 per drive to do this. I looked into one of these and would have not way to recoup the costs of $18,000 for a small model... then you have to find a buyer for your mixed drive scrap....

I charge less, keep it local, and recycle all my waste locally.