Alex Iszatt (Reporter)
TWO computers of ex-treasurer Barcenas were wiped clean by members of the PP party.
High court judge Pablo Ruz requested the laptops to help with the investigation.
Court inspectors found that the Toshiba’s hardrive had been removed and the second Mac was reformatted after Barcenas left in 2012.
Any relevant information regarding illegal party financing, secret cash bonuses has been lost.
The PP alleges that this was done “according to the usual protocol for use and recycling of computer material,” and that reformatting is always carried out when equipment has been used by “persons who might have handled sensitive information.”
It is unlikely the data is lost. There is more than one way to reformat a Hard Disk. The basic reformat removes very little information. Even though the disk appears empty the Data is still there. It can be easily recovered. Even if they managed to clean the disk using an advanced application the HD can be returned to the manufacturer. They usually have tools (not available to the public) for reconstructing data. I have done this many times in the past and have been successful at least 90% of the time.
I think this story is a bit misleading. This is normal practice for any company and or individual when recycling a computer.
…supposing anyone really wants to have the data restored…
I agree with Keith, the ‘data’ on a hard drive is very rarely lost even if formatted more than once and using one of the programs that ‘chew’ the data, it is still recoverable but I am sure the bods in Spain investigating this are aware of this and will not be giving up on their investigation.
The computers weren’t being recycled, they were requested by a high-court judge to help in a criminal investigation and wiped ‘clean’ by presumably the guilty parties.
Typical of Spain, like a naughty child climbing free of its nappies.
Adolescence maybe a century ahead.
Not much determination being shown here but plenty of scurrilous behaviour. Given the huge resources and savvy available to IT experts, short of using a blowtorch there is little that can be scrubbed using commercially available cleaning or reformatting software.
For the curious, the best way to wipe a hard-drive is to erase
It, fill it with video files, then erase it again. Repeat this process
1-2 more times. Done.
The only way to be 100% certain that data on a Hard Disk Drive cannot be retrieved is to physically destroy the drive & this is done by many companies where sensitive data could be of interest to competitors. Other than that I concur with Keith.