Send Back Defective Hard Drive with Confidential Data?
When a hard drive dies in your computer and it is under warranty do you simply send it back for a new one? The industry says many of the hard drives sent back can be reformatted and then go back into production. Worse yet, the hard drives that come back and only the operating system is messed up and the data is there for all to see.
The following are things you should consider before sending back your hard drive under warranty or not.
Data Type on the Hard Drive
If the data on the hard drive is not encrypted then you need to determine if the data on the drive should be sent off. If the data on the drive was posted to the public Internet, would it cause any adverse affects on your business? If there is confidential data on the hard disc then it might be better just buying a new hard drive and eating the cost of the hard drive.
Full Disc Encryption
If the drive is protected with
full disc encryption then you should have no issue sending the drive back.
Data File Encrypted
If the data files are encrypted with EFS,
TrueCrypt or another data encryption method, then you should consider what other data on the drive is not encrypted, like your email. If all the important data is encrypted then you have no worries about the rest of the data, send it back.
Encrypted Email
Is the email on the hard drive encrypted? Many people have encrypted data and encrypted volumes, but their email resides in an unencrypted file. Ouch! Email clients like Outlook can encrypt the storage of your email on your hard drive. Make sure your email is stored encrypted. If the email on the drive is more important to keep secret, keep the dead hard drive and buy a new one.
Passwords
Let’s say your email and data is encrypted on your hard drive or the data on the hard drive would be useless to the rest of the world. You now have to consider the passwords you use on the computer and how they might be cached. If you send your defective hard drive back then make sure all the passwords you used on that computer are changed. This should be simple as you should have all your passwords in Password Safe (or something similar) and have a backup of the Password Safe file. Open your
Password Safe file and take a look at all your passwords then go change them ALL. I am serious.
Dead Hard Drive with No Warranty
If you have a hard drive and it dies and it is not under warranty, you should either have it disposed and destroyed by a professional hard drive disposal company. Or smash it yourself. This is to make sure all the data is beyond recovery.
Conclusion
I actually take a hammer to my dead/faulty hard drives, then take the pieces and dispose them at different locations. It is therapeutic. If you have a hard drive fail, you need to think about what is on your hard drive and if it is worth sending it back and running the risk of exposing your data to the unknown.
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