Return Seagate USB HDD - data security?

[WorriedNoodle]

I bought a Seagate USB hard drive from an online store here that lasted all of 3 weeks. The Seagate web site allows me to return it by mail to Fortune IT Mall service center and says to clear all data on drive before sending?

>In order to protect your privacy and other interests in data, delete all data, or as much as possible, from your product before returning it to Seagate

 

** However how does one delete data when the drive will not start, which is why I am returning it?

 

Will Seagate then have full access to all data on drive if they have the technology? I cannot rip the drive out the casing first and test in another bay first - as it voids warranty doesn't it? Not a big issue as there is nothing illegal on there and my private files are all in a veracrypt partition on it, just curious.

[Daffy D]

You could try this free version of Active Killdisk;-

 

http://www.killdisk.com/killdisk-freeware.htm

 

You can run it from desktop just be sure you select the correct drive to erase, or to be on the safe side make a boot disk and disconnect all other drives then run from boot up.

 

[WorriedNoodle]

Thanks, but I cannot turn the HDD on so I cannot be access it from a PC?

 

I suppose my main question is can Seagate actually get to the data somehow on the disc or do they just recycle them immediately and respect owners privacy? They don't actually discuss that on their web site as far as I know.

 

I am only expecting a replacement new disc from them.

[RichCor]

Only Seagate, or their 'return fulfillment' partner, can answer that question.

 

But I doubt either is in the business of random data acquisition through data recovery.  But that doesn't mean they don't pile those drives up somewhere for someone else with sticky fingers to take and cobble together a working drive for themselves, with the data intact.

 

So there's you unhelpful answer for the day.

[WorriedNoodle]

OK, thanks. I found a policy on Seagates web site about protection of customers data when they cannot access it anymore like in my case and it seems they follow procedures as one might normally expect.

http://www.seagate.com/as/en/support/warranty-and-replacements/data-overwriting/

 

I don't necessarily trust it but will give them the benefit of the doubt to get a free replacement out of them as the lost data is not that such a big deal for me if it is stolen.

[RichCor]

In one of my past lives we used to run entire drives through a large degaussing magnet before ever shipping them back for RMA replacement. That pretty much ruins any chance of any repair/refurbishing though. 

[Daffy D]

2 hours ago, WorriedNoodle said:

Thanks, but I cannot turn the HDD on so I cannot be access it from a PC?

That's why I suggested to boot from CD.

 

The Active KillDisk program shows up more than just the main basic disk, as example on some disks there are extra partitions that don't show up on M$ Disk manager and arn't deleted with a format but these are visible in this program and can be wiped clean.

 

That's why, though your disk is not seen by your computer it might possibly show up on this program.

 

Just a thought.

 

Edited August 1, 2017 by Daffy D

[KittenKong]

8 hours ago, WorriedNoodle said:

Will Seagate then have full access to all data on drive if they have the technology?

 

Yes.

 

Will they bother? Probably not.

[Crossy]

4 hours ago, KittenKong said:

Yes.

Will they bother? Probably not.

And, do you really care?

 

If the data is that sensitive it should have been encrypted anyway, a bit late now

 

[KittenKong]

13 hours ago, WorriedNoodle said:

Thanks, but I cannot turn the HDD on so I cannot be access it from a PC?

 

If the problem is that you cant turn the drive on at all then it may be just the power supply that has failed. Worth checking it before you send it back as a replacement external power supply should be cheap and easy to find.

[bendejo]

If you go into BIOS can you see the drive in question?  If you were to boot from a USB drive using Linux does the disk show up?

If so, get a copy of Hiren's Boot CD and put it on a USB flash drive and boot from that.  It is a set of utilities.  There's one called "Darvik's Boot and Nuke" that will crunch the data into digital mincemeat.  If you have another disk installed be very careful.

You can also run Linux from a bootable flash drive and run any of a number of disk utilities to clobber what's on there, or do something manually like overwrite, partition into lots of small segments, or whatever creative means you can think up.

 

 

[RichCor]

6 hours ago, KittenKong said:

 

19 hours ago, WorriedNoodle said:

Thanks, but I cannot turn the HDD on so I cannot be access it from a PC?

If the problem is that you cant turn the drive on at all then it may be just the power supply that has failed. Worth checking it before you send it back as a replacement external power supply should be cheap and easy to find.

Many smaller drives are just powered from the USB connection.

If the drive doesn't spin up when connected, and the USB port isn't the problem, then the drive needs to be replaced.

[KittenKong]

9 hours ago, RichCor said:

Many smaller drives are just powered from the USB connection.

 

This is true, but equally many will have power supplies. All mine do for a start. Clearly if there is no external power supply there will be nothing to check.