I have a thing where I buy used computers just to see what's on them

[Chojin]

I want to go a step further though.

I want to access previously deleted files. I know the hard drive keeps a kind of a log of all the files ever viewed on the computer, but I have no idea how to get to them.

Do you have any idea or am I just pissing in the wind here?

[Dante Hicks]

A log of all files ever viewed on the computer? That strikes me as bullshit, unless you mean something else. Google for undelete tools or something.

Still, this reminds me of a time where I used to work for a tech support company. If a h/w fault was identified over the phone (e.g. a defective HDD) then an engineer would be sent out to replace the HDD. Because it was basically an insurance package, the HDD then became the property of the underwriters. More practically, they never wanted it, so it got put in a skip outside our work.

A lot of the time, motherboards, HDDs, etc would be thrown into the skip despite generally working (e.g. one of the IDE channels had failed on the mobo or something). On a Friday, everyone would rummage through the skip getting what they could (yes, it's pathetic, but yes it's free hardware). I picked up a few HDDs (which I would generally check the contents of). Often it'd have been formatted, but ocassionally there'd be people's documents to read (highly unethical, but whatever). I'm not sure what happened (it was late, I was probably doing something stupid) and I ended up searching on my own HDD without realising. I saw a photo of an area near my home and thought "OMG what a coincidence, they live near me." And then I saw another one, of someone I knew, etc, etc.

It took a good five minutes of feeling utterly amazed/scared before I realised I was looking at my own HDD.

[Luckeh!!!!]

Originally Posted by Chojin

I want to go a step further though.

I want to access previously deleted files. I know the hard drive keeps a kind of a log of all the files ever viewed on the computer, but I have no idea how to get to them.

Do you have any idea or am I just pissing in the wind here?

there is no log, you can use tools to recover data that has been "deleted" by the user.

depending on how powerful your tool is (i'm talking government strength here) you could even recover files that have been under several reformats

[queball]

The most I know you can do with standard hardware is take an image. Then you can get undelete software which (1) on FAT, looks at directory entries past the number of files in the directory, thus recovering files quite neatly if they haven't been overwritten, (2) search the unused space for anything interesting.

If you want more than that, brush up on your microscopy and quantum physics. Build your own electron microscope (you might ask these guys for help, I think you really want the scanning-force-microscope, though you'll have to find out what you need yourself). Google around, read some journals on the subject and I'm sure you could recover significant amounts of overwritten data, with enough enthusiasm. Or if you're an eccentric millionaire, check out some forensic data recovery services.

[Androme]

Originally Posted by queball

If you want more than that, brush up on your microscopy and quantum physics. Build your own electron microscope (you might ask these guys for help, I think you really want the scanning-force-microscope, though you'll have to find out what you need yourself). Google around, read some journals on the subject and I'm sure you could recover significant amounts of overwritten data, with enough enthusiasm. Or if you're an eccentric millionaire, check out some forensic data recovery services.

rofl - all that work and then some idiot has to just bring along a magnet and the hard drive is messed up - rofl.

[Luckeh!!!!]

Originally Posted by Androme2

rofl - all that work and then some idiot has to just bring along a magnet and the hard drive is messed up - rofl.

the drive is messed up to you or the ordinary person, but unless you have an industrial strength magnet, there will always be a residual charge left on the hard disk surface.

so if you're on the run from the kiddy porn police, the only way to be safe is the crack open your HDD and melt the sucker.

[flapjack]

or just throw them into the same room as said industrial strength magnet.

or if you're really going for the overkill, throw it into a particle acclerator

[meglamaniac]

I once got an old 286 from my school (back in the days when I was but a poor GCSE student).
It had this crappy DOS based office suite called 8-in-1, in which I found written reports, financial records, spreadsheets etc for some old company (including credit card details etc).
However, given as the info was 12 years out of date I had a good nosey then deleted it. Said 286 now lives in a refuse tip somewhere. If that had happened in today's cliamte, I could probably have had someone sued for breach of the DP Act \o/

[Cyp]

Originally Posted by flapjack

or just throw them into the same room as said industrial strength magnet.

or if you're really going for the overkill, throw it into a particle acclerator

What if they use a bottle of concentrated Maxwell Demon powder to recover data from the hard drive?