[Full-Disclosure] erase with magnet

[Jeff Schreiner]

>>http://www.periphman.com/degaussing/degaussers/v92.shtml

This device can be used to wipe a drive however if you read the bold note at
the bottom of the product description and I quote, "Please note: Hard drives
are NOT reusable once degaussed."  

Most likely due to the fact that it scrambles the low level formatting
(track and sector markings) of the drive.  Once the track and sector
markings are scrambled the drive is rendered pretty much useless. Unless you
send it back to the manufacturer to be low level formatted again.

Taken from same site, "Magnetic media products that have factory
pre-recorded magnetic servo patterns should not be degaussed. Degaussing
would erase the factory written magnetic servo signals and leave the media
unusable." in other words hard drives.

I am not aware of any hardware method to wipe a drive and leave it in 100%
usable condition.

-----Original Message-----
From: full-disclosure-admin at lists.netsys.com
[mailto:full-disclosure-admin at lists.netsys.com] On Behalf Of Michael Cecil
Sent: Saturday, April 03, 2004 4:35 PM
To: full-disclosure at lists.netsys.com
Subject: Re: [Full-Disclosure] erase with magnet

At 03:18 PM 4/3/2004, Michal Zalewski said:

 >Some folks made quite brave claims about inability to degauss a disk, one
 >guy even claiming the field needed to accomplish this could possibly kill
 >the operator, but this seems to be quite silly considering there is a
 >number of hardware degaussers for hard drives readily available on the
 >market, some of them certified and used by fairly reputable organizations:

There are?  Show us one.

 >http://www.periphman.com/degaussing/degaussers/v92.shtml

This is for tapes.
-- 
Michael Cecil
macecil at comcast.net
http://home.comcast.net/~macecil/howto/
http://home.comcast.net/~antiviruscd/

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