Invisible wrote:
> As far as I know, both option #5 and option #6 make it impossible to 
> read any useful data from the drive just by plugging it in and asking 
> the drive electronics to read the data off the disk surface. In either 
> case, you would have to physically dismantle the drive and crawl over it 
> with a microscope - which is damned expensive. Using random data (and 
> multiple passes of it) reputedly makes this process harder - but not 
> impossible. Non-sequential writes are supposed to make it harder still.

The US military overwrites (with pseudorandom data) five times before a 
classified drive becomes unclassified.

I suppose a drive could be designed so that a single pass is good 
enough, but if you're in that big a hurry, thermite is your friend.

Regards,
John

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