Forgot to erase data from returned hard drive.

[Mr.Gene]

Last night I setup a return for a hard drive on amazon.com and I selected UPS Pickup as an option. I was going to erase everything from the hard drive. However since UPS never shows up on the following day to pickup returns, I was going to format hard drive today.

To my surprise UPS did show up today to pickup my return, and in panic I quickly put HD into a box and gave it to UPS driver without erasing it.

There's no way to get it back now I presume. I'm a little worried.

 

[Ricky Smith]

What's your question?

 

[chaosbunny]

So you did what every user of icloud or similar services does. You gave all your data away.

Most certainly that hd is going to be formated and sold again I guess. Or did you return it because it was faulty?

Since you are worried why not call UPS and ask if you can get it back? Might cost a little bit but that should be money well spent for piece of mind.

 

[justperry]

So you did what every user of icloud or similar services does. You gave all your data away.

Most certainly that hd is going to be formated and sold again I guess. Or did you return it because it was faulty?

Since you are worried why not call UPS and ask if you can get it back? Might cost a little bit but that should be money well spent for piece of mind.

AND:

9 out of 10 computers are windows computer, can't read HFS+, AND of those 9 out of 10 Users 6-7 are not that smart with computers
So, only 3 out of 100 are smart enough to get the Data of, and even then a tiny percentage would actually do something with it.

 

[r0k]

I have a similar situation with my 2008 Macbook. After migrating my stuff to my new MBP, I put the original 160GB drive back in and did a quick format and reinstall of Leopard. I really should boot it up and wipe erased space before I sell it.

 

[GoCubsGo]

AND:

9 out of 10 computers are windows computer, can't read HFS+, AND of those 9 out of 10 Users 6-7 are not that smart with computers
So, only 3 out of 100 are smart enough to get the Data of, and even then a tiny percentage would actually do something with it.

Can you back up these seemingly made up statistics?

OP, how much was on there? You may have to ask Amazon to ship it back to you.

 

[justperry]

Can you back up these seemingly made up statistics?

OP, how much was on there? You may have to ask Amazon to ship it back to you.

NO, but show me I am wrong.

 

[Kissaragi]

Was it full of adult european fetish videos featuring celery and flying googles? If not i wouldn't worry

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

If you sent it back to the manufacturer, it'll more than likely be destructively tested (erased by the test), parted out, or have the circuit board swapped making recovery just about impossible. I read years ago about how the companies Seagate/WD,/etc refurb drives. They take the drives in and sort depending on code reported. Most drives come back with controller board related errors and the boards are swapped and the drives go through a long burn-in process and destructive testing. If they still fail, they are shredded. If the code indicated an internal disc or HDA error, the controller is stripped and tested and the rest of the drive is shredded. They don't spend a hell of a lot of time on trying to 'fix' the drives. It's about getting them to pass the test and get 're-certified' and boxed and shipped out again.

The larger drives, according to the article, the 'big data' expensive SCSI and FC based drives that fail the first round of tests may go through a second round where they do more to try to rehab them, but the average 'Best Buy' special isn't given much work to try to fix it.

Any data is long gone.

Now for Best Buy (I realize yours didn't go there) or any other vendor, the chances of people picking through your stuff is higher. I found a guys extensive kiddie porn stash on a computer that was brought in for repair at a place I subed at. I tested the drive and it passed and then started looking at what was on the drive and found that a certain directory was taking up nearly all of it. *surprise* We turned him in. The 'crack prosecutor' plea bargained the case and he got off...

Anyway, if you didn't have anything of value, don't worry, be happy?

EDIT: Amazon direct? Wow. Hard to tell... I'd assume that it would be 'RTV'ed' (returned to vendor)