Wipe Any PC in 2 Minutes! - Redkey USB
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
2,423 words · ~12 min read
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Now you might think that when you delete a file,
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or especially if you format or wipe an entire drive,
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whether it's a hard drive or an SSD like this one,
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that that data is just gone.
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But in actuality, if you were to properly delete
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every single file that you deleted from your computer,
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it would bear a significant cost,
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both in terms of time,
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because you would have to actually take time
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out of your drive's busy schedule running your OS
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or your games or whatever else
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to write ones or zeros to that entire portion of the drive
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and in terms of durability, especially with SSDs,
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which only have a finite number of times
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that they can be written.
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So the way this actually works is either in the MBR or GPT,
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which is the GYD partition table,
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the entry for the file gets deleted,
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but the actual data stays
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until it's incidentally overwritten.
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So what that means is if you were ever going to
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recycle a computer drive
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or if you were gonna give a computer away to a friend,
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you need to make sure that all of your selfies,
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and I really do mean all of them,
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have been properly deleted from your machine.
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And that, excuse me, is where today's product comes in.
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This is the RedKey USB,
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which allows you to quickly and easily wipe any computer.
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And also we'll probably be showing you guys
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a free way to do this because this is sort of
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unnecessary, but free-ish, all right.
1:32
And this video is brought to you guys by
1:34
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This stuff features a polished aluminum heat spreader
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and this really cool crystalline structure on the top
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in a way that is absolutely flashy.
1:49
You can check it out at the link in the video description.
2:01
So let's start by taking a look at what's in here.
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So supposedly we should just plug this in
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and it'll give us its own little screen
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and it'll start wiping.
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So this is actually the original RedKey USB.
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This is funny.
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I don't know what to make of this guy.
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So it's a Kickstarter that did apparently deliver
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to its backers, really, really small campaign.
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I think they only raised about like $11,000
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or something like that.
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And then the site is now down in spite of the fact
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that the only instructions I can find for how to update,
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and your RedKey includes lifetime updates,
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are going to their site and downloading the latest updates,
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although they're working on an online updater
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for the new one, but then the site doesn't work at all.
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So I don't know how their online updater is gonna work.
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Anyway, they've got a new campaign
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that actually ends in like 36 hours.
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It just took us this long to get to this.
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I don't know where I'm going with this.
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Let's just screw it.
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Let's try it.
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What is this?
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I guess just for packaging to keep it.
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Oh, just to keep it in there?
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Yeah.
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So the BlueKey is nothing.
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This is just a 16 gig key.
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So actually, you know what?
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Jake can use this one to make like our free version.
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Well, about that,
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I was thinking about using a tool called D-band,
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but I found that that's only for hard drives.
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And then I was looking for a free SSD alternative,
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and it doesn't really seem like there's a lot
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unless you just get the tool from your SSD's manufacturer.
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Like Corsair has a tool, Samsung has a tool,
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Kingston has a tool, but it's not showing up.
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And with those tools, you can secure a race.
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And then there's also in Windows,
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if you just reset, like you can show them right now,
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it'll give you the option to securely reset the PC,
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which we assume is a similar kind of tool.
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So maybe we should try that out.
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Keep my files, remove everything, click that.
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Let's do it.
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Well, we got an extra drive here, so.
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See, remove files and clean the drive.
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This might take a few hours.
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This won't take long.
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You're sending me real mixed messages here, Windows.
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Oh God, we're just doing it?
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I thought we were.
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You told me to do it.
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I guess so, we're doing it, it's fine.
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We have an extra drive to try this.
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Well, now we have to let this run.
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Yeah.
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Well, it's actually doing something now.
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Yeah, that's good.
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Okay, so now while this one continues to run,
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I think we're probably at like 10% or something.
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I don't know.
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We're gonna go ahead and we're gonna try our red key
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on our second test bench.
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So you can see here, we've got our pictures,
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including the ones we don't want anyone to see.
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And we're just gonna shut the system down.
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We're gonna pop this in here.
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Why are they so hairy, David?
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Because grown men have hair, Jake.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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We'll find out one day.
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Oh.
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Wow.
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You know, just because you can grow a nice beard, David,
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not everyone can do that.
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Voice crack, damn it.
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Do you remember what their key is?
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F2?
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F11?
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Delete?
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EVGAs?
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No, I just want the boot menu.
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Okay, well, it would have been F8 then,
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but I think I'm already gonna go into the box.
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Hey!
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Yay!
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Got it.
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All right.
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So I'm gonna go with non UEFI, probably.
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I think it restarted.
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Oh, no.
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There we go.
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Okay, loading.
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Please wait.
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Okay, here we go.
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Oh God.
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Okay.
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Warning.
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This device will erase the contents of any disc detected.
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Wipe will commence automatically after 60 seconds.
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That's actually pretty handy.
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Yeah.
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You can click F1 and start now.
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I'm gonna reset the timer.
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Wait, wait, wait.
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Should we see the advanced menu?
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Yeah.
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F6.
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So if you remember the keys,
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or if you have the manual nearby, then-
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Look, we don't have much time here.
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You actually don't need the GUI.
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Where is it?
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Do they actually not just have all this in here?
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We're running out of time here.
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Here it is.
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Check that out.
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Main screen.
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Wiping screen.
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You may hear audio beeps during the last 10 seconds
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of the countdown timer
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if your computer has a built-in speaker.
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Okay.
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F6 advanced.
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Boop.
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We'll erase the contents of any disc detected.
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Method random.
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Scramble.
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Okay.
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Oh, it's got like government standards.
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That's pretty cool.
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Department of Defense.
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Gutman.
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Seven random pass methods.
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Dang.
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33 random pass methods.
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That's the like, yeah data.
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Zeroing.
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Let's do zeroing.
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Well, random's the default.
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Okay, we'll do randoming.
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All right.
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One round.
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Or should we just go back and then click start?
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Let's go back.
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Let's do the default.
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Let's do the default.
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F3.
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F3.
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Cancel.
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Damn it.
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That's weird.
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I got you.
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Oh, you got it.
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Nevermind.
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So I guess we should wait so we can hear the beeps, hey?
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And we're back.
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We said with 10 seconds remaining.
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Oh, really?
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Do we wanna wait the 35 seconds?
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Yeah, yeah.
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I wanna experience this.
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I don't think this has a speaker built in.
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Yeah, it's not gonna do it.
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There's a speaker header right here.
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Okay, I started it.
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Okay, so queued discs.
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It found our disc.
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And remaining time, two and a half hours.
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Oh.
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Cool.
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Good thing we used a one terabyte drive with this one.
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Good thing we did one pass.
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Pretty cool.
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Three o'clock, okay.
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It'd be done just before the end of the day.
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Why don't we go do the,
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why don't we go do the smart your garage door video then?
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Whoa.
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So we're back.
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Our data is wiped.
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We can remove the red key and power off the machine.
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So we need to put this SSD in a computer
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and see if there's any data on it still.
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Yes.
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Reekabah.
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Is it actually free?
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Yeah.
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The free version is free.
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All right.
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What sort of files are we trying to recover?
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I mean, we're specifically looking for pictures,
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which would be a much faster scan.
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Yes, we could search for, do you wanna search for all?
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Yeah, let's search for all.
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It's gonna take a long time.
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Yeah, this drive is blank AF.
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So we're probably gonna have to set up,
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make a partition and stuff.
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Yeah, it wouldn't happen.
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Yeah, there we go.
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No files were found.
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Would you like to scan again with deep scan enabled?
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No, this can take over an hour on a large drive.
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Well, it's not that large of a drive.
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Okay.
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23 files, yeah.
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Oh, interesting.
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This device irrecoverably destroys data,
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so we should not be able to find anything.
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I don't know if that's just like the boot record stuff.
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Yeah, it seems likely,
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cause it's also at 0%.
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So we might just have to leave that.
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Should we check the Windows thing then?
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Uh, yeah.
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That's gonna take a little longer to scan, I reckon.
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Well, let's throw it on my computer.
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Oh, this might not actually be plugged in.
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Moderately important.
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Oh, there's your problem.
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Yeah, he does this professionally.
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So our first drive, the one that we hit with the red key,
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that one's over there,
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and we're trying to see if we can find
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any remnants of data on it.
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Then we grabbed the other one
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that we used the Windows tool on,
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and we're gonna go ahead and see if,
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I don't know, we can find,
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I mean, I guess specifically those pictures.
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We're just gonna deep scan it right off the bat here.
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For photos, or did you just do any files?
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Any files, any files.
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We're gonna get a lot of files.
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Okay, so we'll come back in an hour.
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Yeah, but we're gonna have a list of 100,000 files.
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Yeah, but we know what they're called.
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Okay.
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Sure, sure.
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We're looking for the news folder.
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We're looking for the news folder, all right.
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Seven hours later, we are finally done.
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So this one actually went quite quickly,
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and it found a fair number of things
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that were either partially or fully overwritten,
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but were still here.
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With that said, our photos are not.
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Pretty much everything here is like
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some kind of Windows junk.
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Like it's all from the Windows.
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Windows folder.
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For an average person, this seems fine,
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but it also assumes that your computer is still functioning,
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which is where the red key comes in.
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I'm gonna be honest with you guys.
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I was actually expecting to kind of trash on this,
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because I was like, what, 45 bucks for a USB key.
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Like, what are you, you know,
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there's free utilities, blah, blah, blah.
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And honestly, there are utilities out there,
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but one of the ones that we found
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that was somewhat feature comparable was $10.
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And then you have to provide your own USB drive.
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And this one is like, it's just dead simple to use.
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So here's our result from the one terabyte drive.
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We did actually manage to find seven files.
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What even are they?
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I don't know.
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They're something, so something, so something dot FLVs.
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And they are apparently excellent status.
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So like we can go ahead and try to recover one of these.
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So like we can go ahead and try to recover one of these.
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So like we can go ahead and try to recover one of these.
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So like we can go ahead and try to recover one of these.
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So like we can go ahead and try to recover one of these.
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But I can pretty much guarantee this is garbage.
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Let's go ahead.
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So do we have anything that can read a flash video?
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Cannot render the file.
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How big is the file?
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600 megs.
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Apparently.
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Apparently, but like-
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It could also just be recognizing random numbers
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as an FLV.
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Yeah.
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I don't even think I had any FLVs on that drive.
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Yeah, no, this is broken.
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I think this is just garbage.
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And that's only one pass.
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And that's only one pass.
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So like bottom line then,
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looks pretty good to me.
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If you have to do it a lot, I mean-
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Should we use it on James?
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Yeah, should we just like go around
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and wipe everyone's computers?
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I think that would be quite the waste of money.
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We're actually ending up with,
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I think a recommendation here.
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Yeah.
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For like 45 bucks.
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If you do more than just a little bit
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of secure data erasing.
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You might have to buy a couple.
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I mean, yeah, there's gonna be command line utilities
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that you can use to do this sort of thing.
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But this is easy enough to use
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that pretty much anyone could do it.
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So looking pretty good to me.
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So thanks for watching guys.
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