Re: Erase a floppy disc??

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

From: David H. Lipman (DLipman~nospam~_at_Verizon.Net)
Date: 08/06/04 

Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 16:26:14 -0400

The way the Gov't. does it - sensitive data on, hard disks, optical disks, tapes, chips,
etc., are sent to the NSA CMC at Fort George Meade MD.

As for what they do, they are degaussed or destroyed based upon their classification and
media type.

Dave

"Ken Blake" <kblake@this.is.an.invalid.domain> wrote in message
news:%23ZuZq18eEHA.708@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
| In news:ODulny1eEHA.2532@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl,
| The Black Wibble <scanner@free.net.nz> typed:
|
| > I'm not certain that formatting it as a startup disk would
| erase the
| > information, but one way to guarantee that not a shred of
| sensitive
| > data remains on the disk is to delete the contents, then copy a
| 1.4MB
| > junk file to it, then delete the contents again.
|
|
| There's only one way to guarantee that the data can't be
| recovered, and that's to physically destroy the disk (which is
| what the US government does with sensitive data). There are
| sophisticated (and expensive) data recovery techniques that can
| often recover even overwritten data.
|
| Of course, what lengths you want to go to to make data
| unrecoverable depends on what the data is and how paranoid you
| are. Simply formatting the diskette and throwing it out in the
| kitchen garbage is almost certainly good enough for almost
| everyone. The chances are extremely small that some
| evil-intentioned person will sift through your coffee grounds and
| chicken bones to look for discarded diskettes, and then unformat
| them and steal your old financial information.
|
| --
| Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
| Please reply to the newsgroup
|
|

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Erase a floppy disc??
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