So your conclusion from this is that reading the data is categorically impossible.
No, my conclusion is that is hasn't been done.
Proof by "because no one has yet published a paper on it". Right...[/quote]
It has to do with that thing called scientific method. But agreed, when it comes to IT, that is indeed a joke.
Fortunately, some people actually try to move beyond Feng Shui, voodoo and witchcraft and approach this in neutral manner - by publishing stuff. Even then, despite being sound, there is dire lack of evidence of any kind that such method ever successfully recovered erased data. And that is dealing with 30+ year old technology.
More papers (I'll trust that wiki summary is correct). "On the other hand, according to the 2006 NIST Special Publication 800-88 (p. 7): "Studies have shown that most of today’s media can be effectively cleared by one overwrite" and "for ATA disk drives manufactured after 2001 (over 15 GB) the terms clearing and purging have converged."[sup][1][/sup] An analysis by Wright et al. of recovery techniques, including magnetic force microscopy, also concludes that a single wipe is all that is required for modern drives. They point out that the long time required for multiple wipes "has created a situation where many organisations ignore the issue all together – resulting in data leaks and loss. ""
The NIST report should be taken very seriously and it goes along with my original suggestion. At massive scale, wiping drives may be time consuming. And since companies hosting such data do not want to spend money on tasks like that, industrial shredder is by far most cost effective method. Grind 50 disks together and the data is, for all practical purposes, non-recoverable. Because alternative today is that these drives are, without any data destruction, physical or software, delivered in labeled bags to dump. To recover, one doesn't need effort, just an IDE or SATA connector.
Finally, on publishing. Researchers these days are in dire need of justifying their own existence. They fight tooth and nail for grants in oversaturated fields, they are scrambling to reword their "images in social networks" paper for the 12th time so they meet their quota.
And here is something that has never been done or apparently is done regularly or at least has been done - and nobody writes a single paper? The field could be milked for a lifetime. It's enough to fuel several tenures over. And nothing? Not even a single tiny footnote? Not even for a 30 year old MFM drive? A floppy? A patent?
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Or maybe we should count each other's badges. I have 18, including knitting. So if anyone has more, then you are right and I'm wrong.
After all, it works for the OP's teacher, should work here as well.
bored student with access to a big lab and too much time on his hands who wants to use university resources to reconstruct his accidentally deleted porn collection[/quote]
If you are a student, please do this. You have a career made. And the foundation for an incredibly reliable recession-proof business.
