RFI: Rcover files from old hard drives and laptops?

[rob_s]

i have a collection of old laptops, external hard drives, and internal hard drives removed from old desktops and laptops.

When I say “old” I mean over 10 years old.

Is there an “easy button” to recover files from these, and then some way to easily parse them?

I really just want the images, so I'm guessing if I can search for *.jpg, discard any under a certain size as being useless, and copy over what's remaining?

Slight wrinkle, if any of these drives or laptops have passwords, I wouldn't remember what the were at this point.

[Sig_Fiend]

If it was me, I'd probably get an external hard drive docking station that can take both 2.5" drives (laptops) or 3.5" drives (desktop).
If the laptops have passwords, that should at least let you access the filesystem on those drives (unless they're encrypted).

Being that they're old, I'd probably search like you said, and maybe also include these image extensions to make sure nothing is missed: jpg, jpeg, gif, bmp, png, heif, heic, tiff.

Since I see a mix of Mac and PC stuff, issues you might run into include:

• MBR vs GPT partition tables
• Type of filesystem: FAT, ExFAT, NTFS, APFS, etc.
• Type of connection: SATA, IDE, SCSI, Firewire, USB, eSATA, etc.

What kind of computer would you be trying to access these from? If it was from a PC with Windows, you'll probably end up needing to use the built in Disk Management tool to get at least some of the drives initialized and ready to be accessed.

[rob_s]

that one that looks like a Mac isn't. Someone was being cheeky and stuck a mac sticker over the Dell logo.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll try and get one of those docs.

Any particular model that's better than another?

and yes, accessing from a PC.

[mmc45414]

If you still have a desktop/tower computer around it should be simple enough to just access them as additional hard drives that are not booted from. If no desktop system is around then the USB connection would be the option. And 3.0 probably is fast enough to not matter. Stuff that was parked on individual user desktops would be something to be sure you checked.

Then you can take the hard drive to the range, more fun than Bleach Bit...

[Tabasco]

All my old drives are SATA, I remove from the laptop and use a USB adaptor like this:

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-...1-catcorr&th=1

They pop up under Windows, Linux or Mac like a USB drive.

[rob_s]

I may just have to junk all this stuff.

I had one external drive that uses a cord type that I had on hand. Copied it all over to the laptop, then searched for jpg, mov, etc. and am copying those files over to a modern SSD external. Couple of issues:
1) there are a lot of files that are really just pictures of nothing
2) it's taking FOREVER
3) there are files that I would prefer didn't exist (don't ask)
4) it's going to be nigh impossible to figure out what I'd want to keep

On a side note, pics and vids of classes taken with Awerbuck and Rogers are honestly making me sad. Seeing all the other guys I used to shoot with isn't helping either.

Main goal here was to try and find pics my (now grown) former stepson might want of his (now deceased) mom and us from 15+ years ago but I'm starting to think that might be a bad idea too.

So, reframed question... drill holes in the drives? before throwing away? or is that even something to be concerned with at this point?

[Andy T]

I just threw my old drives into trash after removing them from the computer. You could try using a strong magnet (assuming we are dealing with magnetic drives and not SSDs) in an attempt to wipe data.

[mmc45414]

So, reframed question... drill holes in the drives? before throwing away? or is that even something to be concerned with at this point?

I typically drill holes in them, either with 5.56 or #1 Buck, but that is probably just because I like to shoot stuff...

[Dov]

How to dispose of the drives as far as destroying data really depends on parameters, HDD are spinning platter (plate/Frisbee) and physically breaking them ether with ballistic methods, drill, or hammer should be good enough for most average people. Though you need to break the platter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A...rd_disk_04.jpg

SSD are solid state and require different approach, and what techniques/products to use would depend on your specific requirements.

Edited to add found snippet for what I'd recommend for avg people

Ray Franklin tweeted: "Steve, I've looked through the current show notes for the reference 'wipe drive with encryption.' What's the program to effectively wipe a drive with random data?" And that's VeraCrypt. And I tweeted him the link. It's at veracrypt.fr because it's French. And you could use it as we've talked about, basically to fill your drive with cryptographically secure noise. It's actually encrypting what you have already there. But if you throw away the key, no one's ever going to get it.

from https://www.grc.com/sn/sn-944.htm

Basically just encrypt entire SSD with long password, you could just type on keyboard for minute or two, you don't need to keep the password to decrypt it because intent in this use case is just to prevent someone else from being able to access it. Technically that is not as secure as more extreme methods but for practical purposes with a 50 or 100+ character password should be more than good enough for avg people.

Good tool to recover data from HDD or even sometimes SSD that are failing or giving issues is Steve Gibson's Spinrite https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

Steve also has some other useful stuff on his website, and his podcast might be of interest.

[That Guy]

So, reframed question... drill holes in the drives? before throwing away? or is that even something to be concerned with at this point?

I, personally, would be reluctant to throw away personal information in an uncontrolled way. Of course I am being paranoid (to the point where I burn paper mail related to financial issues or firearms, instead of just tossing those into the recycling bin), but then again I have seen several times people looking over the content of old drives they got their hands on from somewhere else just for the fun of it.

The last time I checked, the only method accepted by US DoD for retiring old hard drives was the physical destruction of them. Other organizations may be happy with just full disk encryption. Best practice, however, would be to encrypt the drive before starting to use it. SSD's that have been used without encryption and later encrypted may be tricky, as some parts of the drive may be retired from use by the drive itself, and those bits are pretty much invisible for normal disk management tools. So if you have an unencrypted SSD drive and later encrypt it, bits and pieces of your data may remain unencrypted, and someone with specialized tools may find it.