DoD Hard Drive

That was a major screw up. I know that my employer for the hard drives in the printers that are all in defense related area will be eating the cost of those drives as security will not let them leave. They have to be taken away and destroyed/shredded/minced. I bet they have to do pretty much the same with laptop and desktop drives that go bad.

Actually it may be new now that I think of it. Dell uses the company image on new install machines that we get from them. There may well have been nothing at all other than all the default apps they want everyone to have and no data at all.

It looks like a DOD person and/or contractor screwed up. All DOD hard drives are supposed to be wiped 3 to 5 times, then incinerated. As for “used” hardware, the manufacturers call it “factory refurbished” and its quite common to receive them as replacement parts. Your drive may have been diagnosed as defective by a DOD tech, and instead of following the process the DOD returned it to Dell for a replacement. Dell replaced whatever faulty component there was, ran some basic diagnostics, then put it in their replacement parts inventory which is how you received it.

I thought about this too, but I ran “strings pagefile.sys” right before I wiped it (this is the part that will get me sent to gitmo) to see if it had been used – it had.

Chris, While there was probably some violation of standing operating procedures in the wiping of the hard drive, the good news is that your login screen popped up with a blue window. Had it been red in the title bar, you would have been the recipient of a classified hard drive. Luckily, yours is just a run of the mill unclass system, so there’s no danger of there being something secret on it. Still it is bizarre behavior both of Dell and DOD.

You lost a keen opportunity to expose a tiny bit of the inner workings of a very secretive organization operating outside the public interest.

oops! that is a big screw up then

You have to make a choice when you go to bed tonight, (if you make it that long), how are you going to respond when your front door is kicked in between 2 am and 6 am? A window will also likely be broken and very loud explosions could be going off. If you have a dog it will be shot on sight, no matter how cute, (cats are only worth a stomping). So, what's your response? Lie motionless and beg for mercy? Or defend your castle? Your choice, no one can make it for you? Personally, I might just leave them a cocktail and spend the night some place off the grid.

Chris, that is a trip. Other gov’t faction screwups aren’t that rare but I’ve never heard too many of these RE DoD. Freaky.

Holy crap! Of all places for Dell to screw up with…

It’s possible that this HD came from a defense contractor and not the military. I’ve build up test machines to DoD specs and added that warning myself.

“Wiping” the hard drive is not good enough. The procedure to actually erase a HD for secret government purposes requires special software and several repetitions of the procedure. Even a full wipe where you write a zero to every spot on the drive (which I doubt you did seeing as how that can take hours) is not enough. Even if you do that 4 times it is not up to Government specs for erasing a drive.

Your HD is not erased and has data on it. The Enemy is coming to your house righ tnow to take it away and get it’s secrets!

LOL Swanky rules. ;-)

After the three wipes .. with a low-level format .. It’s up to them to drive degauss them properly in an “oven” .. followed by very large Caterpillar-type machines, made by Hitachi Heavy Industries, which should run over them many times .. inside a Government-controlled Landfill .. upon which will be built Parking Lots, short-story buildings and miscellaneous federally operated, marble-based structures.

You’re lucky to get out alive!

*snicker*

I too can not believe that the DOD would send back any kind of computer storage devices, wiped or un-wiped. Someone is probably going to be in trouble for treason! LOL I’ve been involved with networking for quite some time so I’ve seen my fair share of hard drives and tape drive come and go and when we do lose a piece of storage medium or decide to change it out for whatever reason we wipe it first and then destroy it completely.

The company I work with considers its data very sensitive and private and believe me, they’re no Department of Defense! I actually heard of one other story similar to this however the guy who told me the story said that someone bought a used laptop that came from the government as well. I don’t know whether that’s true or not but after reading your blog I believe it just might be. In this day and age why would the government allow anything used to remain in existence?

I had such a problem like u and I really hate dell now!

Since this happen 5 years ago. What happen?