Data Recovery/Privacy Info....

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Killasta43

Member
Feb 11, 2005
68
0
0
Hello,
I am doing a report on data recovery/privacy for a computer class in high school. I am just trying to gather as much information as possible about date recovery on computers.

I am curious to know if it is possible to view/recover files that a person has had on their computer by looking at any other hardware in a computer besides the hard drive. From what I have studied so far it is only possible to view/track someones data by looking at their hard drive(even when reformatted); is this true?

Also, lets say someone had Warez/illegal program files on one hard drive, reformatted it and then bought a new hard drive. They put the new hard drive in a computer along with the old hard drive that had warez on it. Would it be possible for anyone to trace/recover the files that were on the old hard drive just by looking at the new drive alone?

I am jsut trying to gather as much info as possible to cover all of the different scenarios in my report. I would greatly appreciate any input on this subject.

Thank you,
Justin
 
Y

Yossarian

Lifer
Dec 26, 2000
18,010
1
81
you could look at the monitor's history file to see a display of all warez that were ever on screen. that's about the only other way.
 
MrDudeMan

MrDudeMan

Lifer
Jan 15, 2001
15,069
94
91
if you put a brand new drive in it, no, they cant see what was on the old one.

sounds to me like you downloaded some warez and you are trying to cover your tracks :laugh:
 
K

Killasta43

Member
Feb 11, 2005
68
0
0
That is what I figured you guys would thiink :p. Not the case though. My teacher requested that we cover scenarios for this dumb report. She is wacky :p
 
B

Bootprint

Diamond Member
Jan 11, 2002
9,847
0
0
Reformating a drive does not remove the data from the drive, you can recover data from a formated drive.
 
I

intogamer

Lifer
Dec 5, 2004
19,219
1
76
Originally posted by: Bootprint
Reformating a drive does not remove the data from the drive, you can recover data from a formated drive.
Click to expand...

yeah there are ads in teh back of magazines about datat recovery.
 
H

hevnsnt

Lifer
Mar 18, 2000
10,868
1
0
Ok..

If you format the drive, I can still pull information from it. If you disk wipe the drive, (meaning you overwrite the data several times) I may not be able to pull the data, but I will still be more than likely to see the file names that WERE on the computer. If you buy a new drive, and put it in your computer and pitch the old drive... No, I cannot recover any of your data FROM THE COMPUTER

However if you were on my network, I could pull firewall logs and place you in contact with information. So lets say you have a laptop, and you surf to a website and download a file. You then take the hard drive, format it, drive wipe it 1000 times, and then you throw the laptop into a car crusher. I can still see you accessed that website and downloaded the file from the network logs.
 
K

Killasta43

Member
Feb 11, 2005
68
0
0
Thank you for the input, another good scenario :). But what if you wiped the old drive, and had the new one. You put the old drive(wiped) in with the new one in the same PC. You take the old drive out after using it with the new hard drive and the pc for a while. Could someone see/recover the files from the old drive by looking at the new drive since it was in use with the old drive?

Hehe, confusing scenario :p. I made this one up just to piss my teacher off. And I am curious to know what you guys have to say.
 
H

hevnsnt

Lifer
Mar 18, 2000
10,868
1
0
Originally posted by: Killasta43
Thank you for the input, another good scenario :). But what if you wiped the old drive, and had the new one. You put the old drive(wiped) in with the new one in the same PC. You take the old drive out after using it with the new hard drive and the pc for a while. Could someone see/recover the files from the old drive by looking at the new drive since it was in use with the old drive?

Hehe, confusing scenario :p. I made this one up just to piss my teacher off. And I am curious to know what you guys have to say.
Click to expand...

Well.. if your question is: Will the data leak onto the new drive from the old drive, then the answer is no. However, if the old drive is still around, they will find that data on that drive.
 
K

Killasta43

Member
Feb 11, 2005
68
0
0
Well last question I guess....kinda a stupid one. I have pretty much researched all that is possible for the report :s....I am just cuurious....is it possible to find/recover data or tracks by looking at the motherboard? ram? processor? etc...? Dumb question, but I need to cover all of them. Our teacher wants us to write the report as if the person reading it did not know about computer hardware....sigh...
Thank you for your replies though. :D.
 
Colt45

Colt45

Lifer
Apr 18, 2001
19,720
1
0
Originally posted by: Killasta43
Well last question I guess....kinda a stupid one. I have pretty much researched all that is possible for the report :s....I am just cuurious....is it possible to find/recover data or tracks by looking at the motherboard? ram? processor? etc...? Dumb question, but I need to cover all of them. Our teacher wants us to write the report as if the person reading it did not know about computer hardware....sigh...
Thank you for your replies though. :D.
Click to expand...

Do you understand the fundamentals of how a computer works?

no memory == no data stored
 
K

Killasta43

Member
Feb 11, 2005
68
0
0
Yes I understand how a PC works as far as the basics....I am wondering if the cpu or ram or motherboard acts as a storage device to record tracks/data. Besides the BIOS on the mobo...
 
G

gaidin123

Senior member
May 5, 2000
962
1
0
The only way you could recover memory from the RAM is if the machine was still on and you dumped the memory contents to a file. There *could* be something in it, but if the drive was removed (ie hot swap drive, usb/firewire drive) prior to that most recent boot the data would be gone.

If you had "interesting" data that you accessed on any hard drive with Windows at least file names/types may still be in the registry. Windows loves to help you remember your recently accessed files, shortcuts, desktop icons, etc. They're all in the registry somewhere so if you accessed some files with a Windows install recently there may still be references to them in there.

I believe I read that at least any USB key/hard drive you plug into a windows install will create a unique registry entry that is the same for that device no matter what computer you plug it in to as long as it's the same OS (ie Windows XP). This would tell you what computers have had a given usb device plugged in to it which could be useful in some situations. :)

Also, at least on macs (since you didn't specify OS) pre OS X and possibly even now Toast and other CD burning programs could put Desktop DB files on the CDs you burned which contained information about your system/files that was not relevant to the CD. In fact, important info was stored in it that Apple had removed in I think the 10.1 update.

Um, there's lots of situations where data can "leak" off a drive (ie windows media player using WAVs files made with a pirated copy of Soundforge or cooledit or whatever that app was), Microsoft Office file metadata, etc. but there's little hardware inside a computer other than storage mediums that retains data about files. Maybe the bios or nvidia firewall on those nforce4 boards could maintain some kind of logs...anyway I'm rambling.

Gaidin
 
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