Direct MP3 Download: My Hard Drive Died #3 – DEFCON and Hard Drive Diagnostic Tools
Hosted by: Scott Moulton of MyHardDriveDied.com and Steve Cherubino of Podnutz
Topics discussed:
DEFCON 17
DEFCON is the world’s largest annual hacker convention, held every year in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The first DEFCON took place in June 1993, and in 2008, over 8500 people attended DEFCON 16.
Many of the attendees at DEF CON include computer security professionals, journalists, lawyers, federal government employees,
crackers, and hackers with a general interest in computer code and computer architecture.
Scott demonstrated how to repair a RAID Array by looking at picture.
Samples of pictures from a hard drive will give you an idea on how many disks there are, how many slices, what the slice size is, which order the disks go in
MP3 sound files can also be put together using the same approach as Scott uses with samples of pictures
A presentation via YouTube is available showing you piece by piece how this all works à Defcon 17 – RAID Reconstruction
Upcoming Conferences
Sep/2009 HTCIA High Technology Crime Investigation Association
Nov/2009 ToorCon
Feb/2010 ShmooCon Probably one of the best security conferences in the US and in the World
Questions:
Richard:
Q: What tool can you use to determine if your hard drive is good or bad?
A: There are two main programs Scott recommends:
MHDD (Ver 4.5 has Virtual Terminal, Ver 4.6 does not)
VICTORIA (Ver. 4.6 – Russian utility)
Roger:
Q: How do I know when a hard drive is going bad?
A: Depends on the number of bad sectors, the more reallocated sectors you have, the slower the drive will be
Roger:
Q: I have a hard time judging the health of a drive from the SMART data, what programs do you use to accurately determine the health of a drive, most of the drives you already work on are already bad but what about if you wanted to check the status of your drive ?
A: Scott recommends GSmartControl, a tool that provides a lot of details and graphical views on the drive (Available for: Linux, Mac & Windows)
Steve:
Q: Steve wants to destroy old drives, what is the best method of choice?
A: Secure Erase runs a process that will erase the drive block by block, is one of the most reliable tools available
Steve:
Q: The computer doesn’t have to recognize a hard drive in the BIOS, but can it still access it?
A: Windows is able to see the drive via special tools, the fact that the drive doesn’t show up on the BIOS it doesn’t necessarily mean something is bad with the drive
Comments on Windows 7
Is functionally more stable and definitely much better than Vista
It is more responsive and more stable specially in the corporate environment
It’s the easiest installation Scott has ever seen and he is very impressed
SMART Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology
Is a monitoring system for computer hard disks to detect and report on various indicators of reliability, in the hope of anticipating failures.
SeaTools
Is a diagnostic tool that helps you determine the condition of a hard drive.
It includes several tests that will examine the physical media on your disc drive.
Notes by Jorge Hernandez of 123ComputerRepair.com
