Ask Slashdot: How To Deal With Refurbed Drives With Customer Data? 385
An anonymous reader writes "I just received 3 'refurbished' SATA drives from Newegg. All 3 had some sort of existing partition. Most appeared to be factory diagnostic partitions, but one had a full Dell Windows XP install complete with customer data. How big a deal is this? Should I contact someone besides Newegg about this?"
knowledge is power (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:knowledge is power (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:knowledge is power (Score:5, Insightful)
*this*
encrypt your drive before it fails, because once it fails you can not control the data if you want to return the drive.
I have eaten drives before rather than warranty returns because the data was sensitive (IMHO) and I do not trust every person in the chain to not snoop on the drive's contents.
-nB
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No. It must be lured into a factory where there are huge vats of molten metals, frozen by a truck full of liquid nitrogen, shot into smithereens, and then eventually dropped into the molten metal. I know, it sounds like a lot of work but trust me, its cool to watch. Well worth the effort.
Re:knowledge is power (Score:5, Funny)
Re:knowledge is power (Score:5, Funny)
That significantly reduces the changes of successfully making a warranty claim, and that is probably the issue.
Re: (Score:3)
My advice, don't bother with it. It's faster, cheaper, and easier to use something like secure erase.
Read the article at http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/how-to-really-erase-a-hard-drive/129 and don't worry, it has a link to Secure Erase.
Now you don't need to use Secure Erase itself, there are other programs out there that can do t
Re: (Score:3)
Doesn't help for drives which are dead, but still under warranty...
You can't erase the data without physically destroying the drive, which will invalidate the warranty and they wont replace it...
You also can't erase the data because the drive is dead, and you likely don't have the equipment to recondition the drive like the manufacturer will when you send it back for replacement.
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Seriously, a regular fridge magnet can barely hold itself up there, but a hard drive magnet can hold an entire manila folder, I've tested several.
They are also good for pulling the lids out of cans when they fall in.
Re:knowledge is power (Score:5, Insightful)
First, have a look at the data. Then decide.
Just because you have it doesn't justify any actions you take based upon it. Erase it. Make sure it's completely gone. Then notify Newegg their Refurbies are morons, putting them at legal risk, as well.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:knowledge is power (Score:4, Funny)
Just looking at it won't hurt anyone.
Unless, of course, there is an unencrypted version of the Dark Book of The Elder Gods on the drive....
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Re:knowledge is power (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
That's useless paranoia. The drive needs to be identified, in terms of ownership, the prior owner notified. It's THEIR data. Then complain noisily to vendor, and let your favorite social media site understand the problem.
Vendors have no excuse for this kind of behavior. Worse users need to take ownership in their data, and understand what the privacy laws are all about. It should start with the user, but the vendor has an inspection job to do, too.
Looking at the data is very unlikely to put you at any risk.
Re:knowledge is power (Score:5, Interesting)
Until you find out it had kiddie porn, and simple possession is pretty felonous these days.
Re:knowledge is power (Score:5, Informative)
First: that shouldn't happen. I'm not saying it doesn't or won't, but if people are following the rules it shouldn't.
Second: classified documents are marked as such, top and bottom of every page.
Third: if you you do happen to see documents marked as classified, close them immediately (even if you have security clearance), power down the machine, put the drive in a safe, secure place, and contact someone. It really doesn't matter who, you'll get to the person you need to eventually even if you just call the local police department but you'd probably be better off looking up a general contact number for the DoD.
And for everyone out there who says "Just delete it! Contacting someone is just going to cause problems!", there are 2 things to consider. First, the information never should have been on the drive anyway. If somewhere down the line an investigation gets fired up to go into where all those missing drives went you can bet your ass they'll be knocking on your door, taking your drives (probably more than just the refurbished one), and asking a lot of questions (that are a lot easier to answer honestly than with little white lies). Second, most classified information is classified for a reason. If someone out there is selling drives with classified information on them, that's what we call a bad thing. Yeah, it's going to be a headache for you, but it's the kind of thing that really shouldn't be happening.
Re:knowledge is power (Score:4, Insightful)
First, the information never should have been on the drive anyway.
How do you know this? Someone along the line should have deleted it but didn't. Maybe the drive wasn't in working order when it was returned. Maybe the tech just forgot to format it before sending it back. Former CIA chiel John Deutch was found to have classified files on his personal, unsecured computer [prnewswire.com] even though CIA techs provided him with a secure one.
If somewhere down the line an investigation gets fired up to go into where all those missing drives went you can bet your ass they'll be knocking on your door, taking your drives (probably more than just the refurbished one), and asking a lot of questions (that are a lot easier to answer honestly than with little white lies). Second, most classified information is classified for a reason. If someone out there is selling drives with classified information on them, that's what we call a bad thing. Yeah, it's going to be a headache for you, but it's the kind of thing that really shouldn't be happening.
Your drives will be seized regardless in your scenario whether you looked at the data or not. The government may inspect them to see if the data still exists. A simple format will not truly erase all the data. If your SOP is to format all HDDs when you get them and never look at the data you are far safer. I don't know if the government can technically determine you looked at the data through computer forensics or more conventional means (interogation) but you are far better off never knowing the contents.
Re:knowledge is power (Score:4, Insightful)
You're probably right on that count. I was thinking that if you tell a vendor they sent you customer data without offering some form of proof, you're very likely to get a nonsense reply that adds up to "No, we didn't." To be clear, if there's anything with a mandatory reporting requirement, I do agree that you DO turn it in. When you don't, you ARE guilty of a crime.
Maybe the question is "What do you want to accomplish?" Get on with your life? Then just wipe the drive. Hold the vendor accountable? That gets messy. I'll still stick with "Wipe your own data." If you mail your data to someone, assume they WILL disclose it.
Re:knowledge is power (Score:4, Insightful)
Knowledge can be quite a burden, too.
YMMV.
Re:knowledge is power (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do I have to be the first to say it?
Format the drive. Store data on it. Move on with your life. It's a non-issue. Quit being a drama queen.
Re:knowledge is power (Score:5, Funny)
Same thing you do with every other mostly-dead drive: Go through it and look for pr0n.
Bring Eye Bleach (Score:5, Funny)
I once went over an "unwiped" drive looking for pron. What I found was a folder of "racy" photos the previous owner took. Unfortunately she was twenty years older than me, had about 200 lbs on me, and had a penchant for butternut squash, a food I can not eat to this day.
Knowledge is power, ignorance is bliss, and no amount of eye bleach will remove some images.
Must Wipe It (Score:5, Insightful)
No decision needed. Look all you want, but the liability is on you if someone decides your computer is of interest and data is questionable. Unless you report it to vender in a verifiable way, data on the drive, even if it was not yours, is now yours in any examination. Report it in writing or no evidence will exist to point in someone else's direction for liability.
Wiping beyond technological limits of retrieval is important with both criminal liabilities and civil copyright liabilities. The odds of old data being a problem in your life may be low, but it would be icing on the cake with any situation bringing your drive to the attention of some types of investigations.
Call it paranoia if you like, but why drive around in your new used-car with a suitcase in the trunk that came with the car without knowing precisely what is inside. Remove the suitcase, or examine every square inch of it looking for contraband..
Two choices... (Score:5, Informative)
Choice #1: Send the drives back and demand ones without confidential data on them.
Choice #2: Use a utility like HDDErase which uses low level ATA commands to tell the controller to wipe the drive. This will wipe every sector, even ones that are bad, relocated, or protected ones. After that, follow up with DBAN for good measure.
After that, don't worry about it.
Re:Two choices... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Two choices... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it Newegg's job to wipe the drives?
I would have thought it's up to the original owner to make sure there's nothing important on there.
Re:Two choices... (Score:5, Insightful)
Refurbished drives usually mean the drive failed, was sent in for repair and now is being resold. You can wipe a failed drive? If the motor died, how can you wipe it? The average person does not have the utilities to wipes a failed drive. Whoever refurbished the drive should have wiped it, not newegg.
Re:Two choices... (Score:5, Insightful)
This drive was not refurbished . At best it was put through a cursory test and passed. Newegg failed twice: once, not actually refurbishing the drive , and second not wrong it. Dishonest and incompetent in one pass.
Or their outsourced team, still responsible.
Re:Two choices... (Score:4, Interesting)
This.
Refurbishing a drive means (among other things) a full media test which means writing every sector.
These drives were probably plugged in and "OK, works, ship it!"
Re:Newegg: Many problems. Recommend others? (Score:4, Interesting)
Oddly enough I have a story involving both Newegg and Memory Express.
I recently moved away from a city which was home to my favourite store (Memory Express) and needed to buy micro SD cards. I couldn't buy from ME's online store because they didn't handle my method of payment, so I bought a card from Newegg for a bit more money and a lesser known brand. (the same brand was way more money on Newegg). I tested the card, and it was a class 4 card with a class 10th label on it. Of course Newegg only refunds price not shipping, so I'm out a lot of money and still no decent SD card. I'm holding out until my next road trip.
Moral of the story: Don't trust Newegg. Even if they do return the money, they aren't worth it.
Re:Two choices... (Score:5, Informative)
Christmas Ornaments (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Christmas Ornaments (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if it was still under warranty? For a decent-sized drive, that's giving up over a hundred dollars that the manufacturer rightfully owes you for selling a defective product.
Encrypt your DATA! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Two choices... (Score:4, Insightful)
If the drive is truly "refurbished" NewEgg or its supplier should be testing the drive and in the process of testing the data should be wiped. Yes, I know that a "refurbished" drive has not been fixes but at least it should be tested and wiped to ensure that it meets OEM specifications.
Re: (Score:2)
No, but they *can* communicate with the drive manufacturer to have them put into place a policy & procedure to ensure that the drives *are* wiped clean before being shipped out.
Actually, since there is data on the drive, I would wonder exactly how well tested the drive was before being sent to Newegg for sale.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
What really happened (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Two choices... (Score:5, Informative)
don't bother. they know about this. they DECIDE to ignore some things.
open-box and returns from newegg are bad, bad, bad!.
I buy a lot from NE. but I got burned on open-box things enough that I now refuse to do it anymore.
last purchase was an intel ssd. it was the only one left (a year ago) and it was a customer return.
silly me to think NE even tests things. they do not! they admitted as much on a voice call to me. I was so mad but nothing I could do about it other than not buy from them anymore (only new things, now).
the ssd must have been someone's 'joy ride test' and NE didn't even test it. it worked for a few weeks in my system and - bad for me - I didn't use that system much during the next several months. I finally powered it on and it was no end of disk errors. the ssd was fried. when I called NE to complain they said that they just rebox things and send it out. its YOUR job to verify it works.
O. M. G.
what a lesson ;(
don't get burned. don't buy open box from newegg. I like NE in most ways but they totally screwed me and themselves on that one.
DO NOT BUY USED GEAR FROM NEWEGG. I have to put it in all caps since its a major issue and you WILL get burned; its just a matter of 'when'.
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I can second this. Been burned by non booting motherboard and other open box issues.
-nB
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Most of the time, there's not a whole lot the original owner can do if it's a consumer-grade hard drive. I believe some enterprise laptop hard drives are encrypted by a key that can be blown away (rendering the data on the drive into digital noise) regardless of whether or not the drive is working properly, but it's rare for consumer (or enterprise drives used in servers, for that matter) to make use of the feature because it reduces your odds of ever performing successful data-recovery on the drive down to
Re:Two choices... (Score:5, Interesting)
Instead of choice 1 and choice 2, I would say step 1 and step 2:
1. Inform Newegg that there's a problem with their process (considering this is on Slashdot, this may already be done).
2. Erase the drives.
3. ???
4. Profit
Re:Two choices... (Score:5, Informative)
Why even bother with industrial grade hard drive whipping? It's not you data, so who cares. Just a regular erasing should be fine. If I was the questioner, I would probably just repartition, format and get on with it.
A quick e-mail to New Egg to bitch them out might be worthwhile too.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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That was my thought exactly. There was a story just the other day about a thief who stole a couple of cell phones from a car. He found child porn on the phones, and turned himself in. The judge gave him 1 month in jail... because he neither wanted to encourage theft nor discourage reporting child porn, and the guy also had stolen a car previously....
In any case...my thought was...good thing he looked! Good for the kids obviously, but, him too. How much of a mess would that have been had he been picked up fo
Re:Two choices... (Score:4, Insightful)
Suddenly you're in a whole new world of hurt that involves trying to prove to a justice system that goes for the simplest possible answer that you didn't put it there...
Re: (Score:3)
Why even bother with industrial grade hard drive whipping?
Perhaps they're into HDSM.
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Re:Two choices... (Score:5, Informative)
Choice #2: Use a utility like HDDErase which uses low level ATA commands to tell the controller to wipe the drive. This will wipe every sector, even ones that are bad, relocated, or protected ones. After that, follow up with DBAN for good measure.
You need to become more familiar with the underlying storage protocols before stating things like this. Let's get to the facts, preferably technical ones, because this is Slashdot. What you've said is mostly nonsense (not entirely though), so let me go over it with you:
1) There is no such thing as a "low-level ATA command". ATA commands are as "low-level" as it gets with communication between disks and controllers -- controller status bits are a different thing, and are not managed/viewed via ATA, they are done via PCI BAR or memory-mapped I/O. The "command" you are talking about with regards to HDDErase is part of standard ATA8-ACS specification (probably earlier), known as SECURITY ERASE UNIT (command 0xF4). This is verified here [wikipedia.org].
2) HDDErase issues SECURITY ERASE UNIT, which is a firmware-level erase that the drive does itself. On mechanical HDDs this is completely equivalent to issuing dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/disk bs=64k -- except with SECURITY ERASE UNIT, you have no visibility into the progress of the erase, the software simply has to make "educated guesses". If you erase via an OS (meaning the underlying storage driver issues zeros to each LBA), you can get an idea of the progress and speed given that you know how many LBAs there are, and which ones you've written to. DBAN does the latter (though with its own program, not using dd -- but its C code does the equivalent).
With SSDs, SECURITY ERASE UNIT actually does some extra magic, since the FTL that maps LBAs to NAND flash regions also gets reset (meaning you lose all wear levelling history). This doesn't happen with a standard "OS-level" erase.
And I'll just throw this out there because some smart-ass will certainly bring it up: there is absolutely no "low-level format" equivalent on ATA/SATA disks unless the vendor chose to implement a non-ATA-standard ATA command that does it. I repeat: THERE IS NO LOW-LEVEL FORMAT COMMAND. SCSI, on the other hand, even today still has a low-level format command. This command on SCSI merges the grown defect list into the physical defect list. ATA/SATA does not work this way -- keep reading.
3) Both methods I described above "wipe every sector". However, your claim that "it wipes even ones which are bad" is completely incorrect. The same goes for your "[even ones which are] reallocated (sic)". Bad (uncorrectable) sectors are PERMANENTLY bad. LBAs which are remapped (to point to sectors other than their actual LBA 1:1 equivalent) can point to any sector, of course. Sectors which are marked unusable DO NOT get touched by the drive with SECURITY ERASE UNIT or an OS-level format. I can expand more on this later, but it's probably best to read something someone familiar with storage wrote [dslreports.com] a few weeks ago for a user.
4) Please explain what a "protected" sector is. I believe you're referring to the HPA region [wikipedia.org] of a disk. SECURITY ERASE UNIT does not do this, and no OS-level erase/zero can touch it. The HPA stores information like SMART attributes, the ATA GP log, hard disk model, serial number, capacity (LBA count), and many internal/vendor-specific things. It is possible to "reset" the HPA using utilities like mHDD, but if you read the (awful) docs for it, it will tell you flat out that this doesn't work on the mass majority of disks because it uses a vendor-specific ATA command that not all vendors implement, or if they do implement it, have security limitations applied to it (usually something magical like issue ATA command 0x45 with a specific CDB payload, watching for a result code of some value, then issuing a
DBAN (Score:3, Informative)
http://dban.org/ [dban.org]
Enough said.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Except that if you're returning a drive that doesn't work (e.g., failed controller), then you can't wipe the data.
And if NewEgg isn't wiping it as part of their process, it means that the warranty you paid for is worthless, and that you really can't return any failed hard drives. Or laptops, for that matter.
Data Breach (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically it qualifies as a Data Breach Incident. Depending on the industry the original drive belonged to shit could hit the fan.
The fault lies entirely with the original owner for not wiping the hard drive before returning the equipment. NewEgg is ot in the data wiping business.
Of course the easiest thing for you to do would simply be to repartition it and reformat it.
Re:Data Breach (Score:4, Insightful)
So - then are you saying that you should never RMA a failed HD? Because if NewEgg doesn't wipe drives as part of the refurbishment, then you can never send a drive back.
Re: (Score:2)
If you are at all concerned about your data, you should not RMA a failed disk.
Now, I'm not entirely sure what the answer is to "my hard disk failed after 3 months - I want a new one under the warranty" for consumers, but when I was buying corporate stuff from Dell they had a service where I could pay a small additional fee per drive (something like £10 GBP) and get to keep the failed unit when they replaced it.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, whats the answer then? The company is entitled to have their failed item back if they are replacing it - otherwise the solution would be that its not a replacement, but all warranty failures are dealt with by repair, which will raise costs considerably. Guess who will bear those costs?
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Re: (Score:2)
You didn't read the full comment before smashing "Reply", did you? Let me quote for you, since going back and reading it yourself might prove too difficult:
... they had a service where I could pay a small additional fee per drive (something like £10 GBP) and get to keep the failed unit when they replaced it.
Re: (Score:2)
So - then are you saying that you should never RMA a failed HD? Because if NewEgg doesn't wipe drives as part of the refurbishment, then you can never send a drive back.
I wouldn't send back a potentially repairable drive that has my personal data on it.
At work, we have some drives that we're not legally allowed to return unless we can do a secure wipe of the drive (or the manufacturer will certify that they've destroyed the data). We had to pay extra for our storage array maintenance contract for non-return.
I haven't had to return a consumer hard drive (yet), do they have to be returned in working order? If not, then I'd open it up and physically scrape a screwdriver acro
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Uh, yeah. If you're in a high-security field such as medicine, defense contracting, or the like, you should not return hard drives that contain sensitive information. You should just suck it up and destroy the drive if you can't reliably wipe the data off of it.
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Indeed. If an HDD fails, you should physically destroy it. Your data privacy is usually worth more than the disk.
Obviously if the disk is faulty, you can't wipe it. Also, I think it's crazy buying a refurbished disk anyway - the annoyance of disk failure (even with raid) is usually greater than the price of the drive.
Re: (Score:2)
There are support contracts with large companies that take this into account. I used to work for a financial company that would not allow hard drives to leave the data center. There was some fee associated with this arrangement, but it was less than the cost of buying a replacement drive. When you have a lot of hardware from a particular vendor, it's not a big deal to let the little stuff like this slide.
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seriously?? $9k for a powered hydraulic press in a box?????????????
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And if word of that happened to get out that company X never returns defective products because they don't want the security risk, everybody in the area jumps on it and sells them inferior products at regular prices. What's the company going to do about it? Return it? They can't... due to internal policies.
Yeah, it's collusion.... yeah, it's illegal. But a warranty would protect a customer from that. It's the company's own choice to not utilize such a warranty.
So their best bet would probably be
Re: (Score:2)
You're assuming that the customer had the ability to wipe the drive after it failed. If it was defective then it's quite likely not to be the case.
This sounds an awful lot like someone returned the drive either mistakenly thinking it was defective, or after hitting some sort of intermittent failure with it. NewEgg (or the HD vendor) then "tested" it and stuck it back on the shelf without wiping it. Or maybe they replaced some of the solid-state components and called it a day.
Either way, I'd be very suspicio
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I'm still curious, though. If NewEgg isn't responsible for wiping a drive where say the controller has failed, then does that not make the warranty worthless?
And note that this would apply to desktops and laptops as well.
Furthermore, NewEgg does sell Extended Warranties.
So how does one reconcile the fact that that they sell you hardware protection, but if you exercise your contractual rights to said protection, your data goes out into the wild?
That is simple... (Score:2)
The responsible thing to do is to make a TGZ of the contents and post it on Pirate bay. Zero the empty space to achieve the best compression, although someone might like rooting around in the raw data..
Who cares? (Score:5, Informative)
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Don't ignore it, get that OS license key!
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Why bother? Ignore it. Dumb question. Move on.
"I just received 3 'refurbished' Betamax VCRs from K-Mart. All 3 had some sort of existing cassette in the slot. Most appeared to be factory diagnostic patterns, but one had a recording of last month's Seinfeld episode and documentary on penguins. How big a deal is this? Should I contact someone besides K-Mart about this?"
Simple and easy solution (Score:2)
Run a few times (>=2 ) the command:
dd if=/dev/urandom /dev/sdx bs=4096
The solution is a little bit harder if you don't run Linux: install it first.
Re: (Score:2)
dd exists for Windows, too. And Amiga. And Atari. I think there's even a CP/M version out there.
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And people say Linux is still hard to use....
I've gotten "new" drives from Newegg and Amazon... (Score:5, Informative)
I've gotten drives I purchased as new from Amazon and Newegg with exsiting Windows installations on them. In fact, I'd say I see it maybe once in every 30 drives I get. I buy enough drives that I see six or seven such drives in a typical year. Once I got a drive that was clearly part of a Windows SoftRAID before I formatted it.
Personally, I send those drives back. They clearly aren't new and they're not fit for sale in that state. I'm not paranoid enough to go looking at the SMART data for power on hours but when I run across drives like that it makes me think I should. Amazon will pay return shipping on drives in that condition. That is a good reason to buy drives from Amazon.
Re:I've gotten "new" drives from Newegg and Amazon (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a good reason to buy drives from Amazon.
So Amazon selling used drives labeled as new is a good reason to buy from them? Sounds to me that you need a new vendor. And if you're buying 210 drives a year (one used drive every 30, and you see 7 used drives a year), I highly recommend you get some sort of direct wholesale or resellers account instead.
seat belt (Score:5, Informative)
Mitch: Sorry, your seat belt seems to be broken. What do you recommend?
Cab Driver: I recommend you stop being such a pussy. You're in the back seat.
Just don't even worry about it. Nobody you complain to is really going to care. Give it a quick scan for anything interesting, and format once you're done.
Re: (Score:2)
Just don't even worry about it. Nobody you complain to is really going to care.
I don't know. I imagine if you look at the data, find out whose drive it was previously, and complain to them, they might care.
They also might sue their drive recycling/refurbishment company if they're a business.
Yeah, that's kind of a big deal .... (Score:3)
I'd ask if you can do an exchange for one with Windows 7 on it, since XP is getting pretty long in the tooth ....
Seriously though, it sounds like NewEgg is usually putting the used drives through some sort of diagnostic process, if they all had special partitions on them for the purpose. Maybe they simply need to train their bench techs to wipe the drives first, instead of making the assumption that creating the new partition is ensuring any old data on the drive becomes unreadable/inaccessible?
Other point of contact (Score:2)
There are some eastern european 'gentlemen' that will pay top dollar for quality information. Just extract the names and social security numbers, you can keep the drive.
SD
Goodies (Score:5, Funny)
Happened to us once (Score:4, Interesting)
Quite a few years ago we bought an allegedly new drive from a bay area electronics retailer, and found it to contain some sort of raw partition containing a list of the names of approximately HALF THE PEOPLE in the United States along with some "number". Those of us who were listed in the data were unable to figure out what the number might be (an account number etc.)
Eventually we got bored with the data and put the drive in service for its originally intended application.
I wrote up the event and sent it off to the RISKS list, especially as Peter G. Neumann, the moderator of RISKS, was listed in the data, but they didn't publish it.
G.
Send it back (Score:2)
If it doesn't have the same diag partition, then NewEgg didn't do their usual refurb testing on it. Which means that there's a chance it's not in as good a shape as the others. So send it back and make them give you one that's been properly refurbed. There's no excuse for them not to have wiped the drive in the process of testing it before they resold it.
Just Re-Format (Score:2)
How badly do you want/need to be involved? (Score:3, Informative)
I assume you don't have any LEGAL obligation to do anything other than not try to view the data. If you have any reason to suspect otherwise, ignore this entire Slashdot threat and call a lawyer.
Now the question is, how much do you WANT do do, which boils down to "at least as much as your conscience requires" and "not so much work that you'll wish you'd never ordered the drive in the first place."
At the low end of the stress scale, take an earlier poster's suggestion and use HDDErase or something similar followed by DBAN should make sure you don't ever stumble across their data. Sending it back to NewEgg accomplishes the same thing.
If you send it back, I wouldn't use the normal return method. Instead, I'd write a letter to a high-level executive and include a copy of the drive-plate cover, a screen-shot, and a copy of your order along with a request that the executive do what it takes to make sure this never happens again, then ask for instructions to return the drive. Send the letter by certified mail. Keep copies of all correspondence.
At the high end of the stress scale, you can probably complain to a government agency, as NewEgg may have violated the law.
There are other options in between.
Oder more (Score:3)
Order more drives. Hope for jackpot.
Extortion! (Score:2)
Contact the original owner, and extort them for $50k. It worked so well for Anonymous and Symantec.
Seriously, why does it matter? (Score:2)
Only you know how much you care, so only you know how far to go to do something about it. If it were me, I'd look at the files to see if there was something interesting then go from there. Otherwise DBAN and deal with it.
It's not Newegg's responsibility to wipe the drive (Score:2)
If the hard drive was sold as new and had somebody's data on it, that's a strong case against Newegg.
But this is a used hard drive, and it's not Newegg's responsibility to wipe it unless they're advertising that it's been wiped. Newegg's responsibility is just to test it to see that it works (and fix it if necessary) before selling it as refurbished. Wiping the data is the responsibility of the previous owner of the hard drive.
Having said that, it would be a good idea for them to at least do a quickformat
Easy way to protect your data. (Score:5, Funny)
So I came up with a technique for making the disks safe for disposal.
First, I threw them out the 2nd story window a few times. Then I hurled them at the ground a few more times as hard as I could for good measure.
Then I put them in a plastic bag with a heap of dog shit and water, tied the bag up and put them in the bin. If anyone still wanted to try to retrieve that data, they've earned it.
True Story. Still makes me smile.
Re: (Score:2)
I would think a reformat would be a standard part of any retesting procedure.
Re:use dd (Score:5, Informative)
Long time ago I temp'd at a place that did computer recycling for various companies, mostly for a company that was a large depot of home supplies...Turns the hard drive security wipes were a "dog and pony show", to quote the supervisor. I was instructed to run the formatting utility for about 5 seconds, and then hit cancel and throw it in the "done" pile. "That gets the first part of the drive, the rest doesn't matter."
The people that do this kind of thing have hundreds of drives to do for the day, and there is no QA, so throwing a few in the done pile without clearing it just makes you look good for being extra productive, and nobody gives a shit about the data. Never cheated myself, though I probably should have. I was fired after two weeks, go figure.
Re: (Score:2)
Yea, I suppose you think that's Newegg's responsibility?