[wplug] degaussing tapes and hard drives

[Matthew J. Hughes]

When this subject first came up I was thinking that I could figure out a 
solution and offer up me to implement it. I could after all use the 
work. (necessity is after all, the mother of invention.) However, I 
didn't come up with one, except. Hire it out locally. See if you can 
contract out the operation to one of the local tech firms.

When I was in college we used a radio shack bulk eraser to erase the 
carts we used at the radio station. my short read about these left me 
with the understanding that they just laser guided the magnetic head. 
Why a bulk eraser couldn't be put up against the tapes is beyond my 
understanding of physics. It would seem that a half decent 
carpenter/engineer/electrician could rig it up. The other half of the 
puzzle is why bulk erasing effects the warranty. My assumption is that 
you don't want to return the tapes for replacement until the sensitive 
data is removed. And the real solution you need is to make the sensitive 
data unrecoverable. But if the tapes functionality is so bad that they 
dump out on a bad read function, wouldn't it be better to replace the 
whole process?

-matt

Oh and why we are throwing out bad solutions; store them. Put them in a 
storage unit and forget about them.

Zach wrote:

>Have you seen this list:
>http://www.dss.mil/infoas/degausserlst.pdf
>
>Here is a product you could buy:
>http://www.periphman.com/degaussing/degaussers/v91_HD_DLT.shtml
>http://www.periphman.com/degaussing/degaussers/sv91m.shtml
>
>Zach
>
>
>On 2/22/06, Poyner, Brandon <bpoyner at ccac.edu> wrote:
>  
>
>>It did cross my mind to find out what a junk yard might charge.  I think my best options, from suggestions, would be to rent a proper degausser or buy a really strong, cheap magnet and just hope it works.  That or forego the warranty, buy a sledge hammer, and go nuts.
>>    
>>
>
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