IT BS thread

Ugh, don't do physical damage to it... If it's that big of a deal, then buy your own at a store and keep the current drive / destroy it. If you do any physical damage to the drive, they will not warranty it and you will receive a bill.

 

One of the things you don't want to do is drill a hole in it then send it back to HP. They will come back to you with a small bill since that hard drive cannot be refurbished by their thrid party vendors.

Best this to do is grab some extremely strong magnets and run them over the hard drive. Even better would be access to a degausser as suggested by an earlier post....

 

I'll call HP and see what they say. So I did get talking to one of my local IT guys so maybe you guys could let me know if there's any truth to what he told me. He said hard drives store files, even if deleted, until additional information is put on it to overwrite it. Basically, it doesn't really delete anything until it absolutely has to. So, I was thinking of deleting my stuff, emptying the recycle bin, deleting the backup files, finding a good, free online porn site and filling it up and sending them that hard drive

Any truth to that actually working?

 

Nope. You can run a format on your hard drive and I could still pull the data off of it. There have been tests run that they can format several times and still pull the data off of it.

doing a DOD wipe will stop 99.99999% of the people, but if they really wanted the data, they could get it. If the HD doesn't function, then you need to use a degausser, extremly strong magnets, or destroy the platters physically.

 

So I'm talking with one of our accountants on the phone, and she's discussing some development work she wants. During the conversation, she says, "Oh yea, I've been talking to the COO and I've got him doing some squealing for me."




I figured out later that she was talking about SQL reports.

 

Sounds to me like I should just find out how much this stupid part costs, buy the new one, take a torch to the old one and not worry about their damn 'collateral product warranty' bullshit

Thanks for the help all, I think that's what I'll end up doing.

 

A simple format won't erase the data. It's sort of like having a book and ripping out the table of contents, but all the pages are still there. I know with Linux you can just have random 1's and 0's written to the disk, that should wipe out existing data. If your drive doesn't work at all then that isn't an option. If you're really paranoid about the data that's on their now, and think the magnet method isn't enough, physically destroy the disk and buy a new one from Newegg or Best Buy.

How old is the laptop? If it's within the last 5 years chances are it's a SATA drive. You'll probably find one cheap that's a larger capacity than what you have now. Just note the thickness of your current hard drive. Most laptop hard drives are 9mm thick, but the larger capacity drives might be 12mm thick and not fit in your laptop.

 

There are several tools that do secure formatting to NIST standards. This will take a while. Writing 1's & 0's keeps the prying eyes at bay but not the person hell bent on reading the drive. The type of file system on the drive matters as well. When you quick format a FAT32 fs, it pretty much overwrites the directory and leaves everything else behind-it's not exactly what happens but it's close enough to illustrate.

Anyway, disk drives are cheap enough that when one of mine starts to crap out, I swap it ASAP then drill it when I'm sure it's back in biz.

Good luck!

 

Thanks for the advice i'm looking more for networking or security. I don't have any certifications but I do believe I have enough experience to work somewhere with those qualifications.

 

Get your CCNA for networking & you can pretty much get a job anywhere. Even a partial CCNA with some experience will help you find a job.

 

The laptop is only 11 months old. It's a 750 Gb drive so I don't need anything larger (I only had 3 Gb of stuff on it ).

HP said they don't refurbish the hard drives, they get destroyed. They use them to try and determine why it failed in the first place, then they are shredded. I asked about just buying it and it's a $200 part according to them (even though the whole laptop cost $350 brand new ). I'll find one of those magnets to clean it up and send it back to them. Thanks for the help guys!

 

That's crazy. You can get another 750GB from Newegg for less than $100. Since you use so little of the space you could get a 250GB or 500GB for around $50.

 

It's a $200 part because HP isn't in the business of selling drives

BTW, not 100% on the destruction part. I've received replacement drives with data on them in the past. You should ask if they'll certify the destruction (semi serious about that).

 

Still more than free though

I figured HP's cost would be high but I damn near fell out of my chair when they told me $200!

That's not a bad idea, the certifying destruction. The guy I spoke with said they get shredded, none of the warrantied HDs get reused.

The old HD is a Hitachi, the new one they sent is a Toshiba. Hopefully this one lasts longer than a year!

 

Looking for a roommate if any of you all work or are looking for work in the east part of PHX. I am biking distance from 7 Data Centers and living in the biggest Tech area of the state.

 

Picked up a cisco router and a cable modem for $20 yesterday.

 

What model router?

 

Just a Cisco Valet M10. Nothing special. but can't beat $10. Just for my home network. Nothing like the Cisco Nexus one of our customer's uses in the DC.