Hdd Return, Can They See Data? Options

[drekkar]

well my 120 gb maxtor decided to click click click on me when i start it up, there are illegal things on there (i.e. evox) but would it be possible for them to recover this and me get in trouble? I just want to return my hard drive because it's failing, but I dont want them to see evox or my backups (i have like 4 games on the hdd besides emulators, and i own them, but I still think backing up is against the law in some parts *shrugs*). My friend says I should magnitize it, good idea?

[XxmutinyxX]

its not illegal to make backups if you own the game, its only illegal if you give em out or sell em, and as for evox...i have no clue

[mcw]

Well, what do you plan to do:

If it's going out for warranty replacement... It's usually never a problem (especially if it's clicking). Plus, there's nothing they can do about it. If it has content - so what. It's not their issue to be a "police".

Don't even deal with magnetizing it - not worth the effort (and if something were to happen during the process, i.e. you slip, or magnet dings the cover, then you'll be paying for a new drive).

[{{DEMON}}]

I lost a maxtor drive too with about 120 gig worth of xbox games.. I had it replaced under waranty. No big deal.. They don't care about the content of the drive, even if you have 100 gigs of illegal porn or something they wont go through the effort to see what you had on there. Just send it back and you will get a new one. What they do is they have a machine that tells the techs whats wrong with the drive. (ARM, platter, motor, controller, ect...) it's marked with the problem and they send it for repair. Once that broken part(S) is/are replaced they pop it in a machine that formats it to all 0's (It zero's it out) and they wrap it and sell it as referb drive or send it as a replacement for someone else's broken drive.

{DEMON}