JP2009043362A - Hard disk drive equipped with whitening or physical destruction function - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To perform physical destruction which disables a single HDD unit from erasing or reading of data stored in a HDD unit. <P>SOLUTION: A HDD unit 4 is provided with a whitening program, and a circuit 11 for executing the whitening program. The HDD unit 4 is provided with a drive jumper pin 20 for switching between a personal computer operation mode and the whitening program. When the whitening program is executed, switching the drive jumper pin 20 starts the whitening program by power supply to the HDD unit 4, and the whitening program is executed singly by the HDD unit 4, thereby erasing all the data stored in the HDD unit 4. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an HDD by erasing data stored in a hard disk drive (hereinafter referred to as HDD) installed in an electronic device such as a personal computer (hereinafter referred to as personal computer) or by physically destroying the hard disk. The present invention relates to a hard disk drive having a whitening or physical destruction function for preventing leakage / outflow of data as stored data cannot be read.

  In recent years, there have been many opportunities to replace computers at the timing of speeding up technological evolution of computers or changes in the basic OS installed in computers. As a result, PC replacement cycles are faster and product life cycles are becoming shorter. . Due to the shortening of the replacement cycle of personal computers, there are increasing opportunities such as discarding personal computers that have been used up to that point or transferring them to others. It is pointed out that there is a risk of leaking internal secrets and important personal information from the stored data. For this reason, when recycling a personal computer, it is extremely important from the viewpoint of information retention to erase data stored on the HDD disk or physically destroy the HDD so that the data stored on the disk cannot be read. It has become a challenge.

  Therefore, Patent Document 1 discloses a technique for whitening data stored in the HDD to erase information stored in the HDD. This is done by installing the MS-DOS system, auto-startup file, and whitening program on a storage medium such as a floppy (registered trademark) disk, inserting the floppy (registered trademark) disk into the A drive of the personal computer, and turning on the power. Thus, the MS-DOS stored in the storage medium is read into a personal computer (PC-AT compatible machine), and the auto-start file is automatically read by the MS-DOS system, thereby starting the whitening program and driving the HDD. The data stored in is erased.

JP 2001-344071 A

  However, the hard disk whitening system shown in Patent Document 1 stores the whitening system and its automatic startup file on a storage medium (a floppy (registered trademark) disk as a specific example of Patent Document 1) different from the HDD to be whitened. Therefore, it is necessary to prepare a dedicated drive device for reading the storage medium separately from the HDD, and whitening cannot be performed by the HDD alone. For this reason, in a personal computer equipped with a drive device that is not compatible with the floppy disk drive storing the whitening system, the whitening system cannot be activated and whitening cannot be performed. That is, in recent years, a drive device attached to the HDD has shifted to a drive device that can read and write a storage medium having a larger storage capacity, and is changed to the floppy (registered trademark) disk, an optical disk drive, and further an optical disk drive. Moving to a storage medium with more storage capacity, coupled with the recent speeding up of technical evolution of personal computers, a system that stores a whitening system on a specific storage medium will move to a different drive device in the future. If you do, there is a danger of not working. Furthermore, there is a concern that if the HDD in which the error occurred is not recognized by the OS (Operating System) or BIOS, there is a concern that the deletion operation cannot be performed. For example, in a server or a large-scale personal computer environment, a single personal computer has multiple Although the number of cases in which HDDs are mounted is increasing, Patent Document 1 has a problem that whitening can take time because efficient whitening cannot be expected because only whitening can be performed for each unit.

  In view of the above, the present invention provides a hard disk drive equipped with a whitening or HDD physical destruction function capable of executing a whitening program or physically destroying an HDD without relying on a specific device. The purpose is to do.

  A hard disk drive having a whitening function according to claim 1 is a hard disk drive mounted on an electronic device such as a personal computer, and the hard disk drive erases at least data stored in firmware of the hard disk. And a switching program for switching between a normal startup mode of the electronic device and a startup mode of the whitening program when power is supplied to the hard disk drive.

  According to the configuration of the first aspect, the power of the hard disk drive unit that is the target of the whitening program is turned off, and the operation mode of the electronic device is switched from the operation mode of the electronic device to the whitening program execution mode. Thereafter, when power is supplied to the hard disk drive unit, the whitening program execution process is started.

  The hard disk drive having a whitening function according to claim 2 is characterized in that the switching means is composed of a switch provided in the hard disk drive, and is disposed in the casing of the electronic device so that the switch cannot be operated from the outside. It is characterized by.

  According to the configuration of the second aspect, after the hard disk drive unit is removed from the casing of the electronic device, the operation mode of the electronic device is switched from the operation mode of the electronic device to the execution mode of the whitening program by supplying a power to the hard disk drive unit. Execution processing is started.

  A hard disk drive having a physical destruction function according to claim 3 is a hard disk drive mounted on an electronic device such as a personal computer, and at least the disk of the hard disk drive is physically destroyed in the hard disk drive, A physical destruction means for making it impossible to read data stored on the disk is provided.

  According to the third aspect of the present invention, it is impossible to read the data stored on the disk by physically destroying the storage surface of the disk of the hard disk drive by the physical destruction means.

  The hard disk drive having a physical destruction function according to claim 4 incorporates particles sealed in a package as the physical destruction means in the case of the hard disk drive, and the case breaks the package. And an openable and closable opening window for scattering internal particles in the case.

  According to the configuration of claim 4, the hard disk drive unit to be physically destroyed is turned off and the particles are scattered in the case, and then the hard disk drive unit is turned on to rotate the disk. As a result, particles are caught in the gap between the magnetic head of the hard disk drive unit and the disk, and as the disk is rotated with the particles held, the storage surface of the disk is damaged by the particles, and reading of the disk becomes impossible. It becomes possible.

  According to the hard disk drive having the whitening function according to claim 1, the hard disk drive is mounted on an electronic device such as a personal computer, and at least data stored in the firmware of the hard disk is erased in the hard disk drive. Since there is provided a whitening program, a startup program for the whitening program, and switching means for switching between the normal startup mode of the electronic device and the startup mode of the whitening program when power is supplied to the hard disk drive, the hard disk drive alone The whitening program can be executed and all data stored in the hard disk drive can be erased. Accordingly, it is not necessary to separately provide a drive device for executing the whitening program, and the whitening process of the hard disk drive can be performed stably over a long period of time. Furthermore, since it becomes possible to whiten a plurality of hard disk drives at the same time and whitening processing can be performed in a short time, the working time can be greatly reduced.

  According to a hard disk drive having a whitening function according to claim 2, the switching means comprises a switch provided in the hard disk drive, and is disposed in the casing of the electronic device so that the switch cannot be operated from the outside. Therefore, the whitening is not performed carelessly by operating the switch incorrectly.

  According to the hard disk drive having a physical destruction function of claim 3, the hard disk drive is mounted on an electronic device such as a personal computer, and at least the disk of the hard disk drive is physically destroyed. Since the physical destruction means for making it impossible to read the data stored in the disk is provided, the disk can be physically destroyed by a single hard disk drive, and a plurality of hard disk drives can be destroyed at the same time. And the destruction processing time can be shortened. Also, the data stored in the hard disk drive can be prevented from leaking more reliably by physically destroying the disk.

  According to the hard disk drive having a physical destruction function according to claim 4, the particles sealed in a package as the physical destruction means are incorporated in the case of the hard disk drive, and the package includes the package. The hard disk drive has a simple structure such as storing a package containing particles in the case of a hard disk drive by providing an openable opening window for breaking the particles in the case. It is possible to physically destroy the hard disk drive simply by tearing the package at the time of destruction.

  Hereinafter, specific embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. The following embodiment is one form when the present invention is embodied, and is not intended to limit the present invention within the scope thereof.

  1 is a front view showing an outline of the configuration of a personal computer showing Embodiment 1 of the present invention, FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view showing an outline of the configuration of an HDD unit, and FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a whitening program process.

  In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a personal computer, which includes a display 2 and a keyboard 3. A hard disk drive unit (hereinafter referred to as an HDD unit) 4 to be whitened is built in a housing 1A of the personal computer 1. .

  As shown in FIG. 2, the HDD unit 4 includes a disk 5 provided with a recording magnetic layer, a drive mechanism 6 such as a motor for driving the disk 5, and reading of data stored in the disk 5. A magnetic head 7 for writing and the like, a control board 8 controlled by the HDD unit 4, and the like are housed in a case 9 of the HDD unit 4. The control board 8 is similar to the conventional one in which a control circuit for controlling the driving mechanism 6 and the magnetic head 7 and the like to read / write data stored in the hard disk 5 is formed. However, the whitening program, the circuit (IC chip) 11 for executing the whitening program, and the address of the disk on which the personal computer OS is stored when the power is turned on are set to the normal personal computer operation mode. The drive jumper pin 20 is provided in the case 9 of the HDD unit 4 as a switching means for designating. The drive jumper pin 20 is conventionally provided for designating a sector or the like of a disk to be read / written, but in this embodiment, a drive jumper pin for designating a normal disk address or the like. Along with 20A, a new drive jumper pin 20 for executing the whitening program is added. In addition, as a switching means, for example, when a jumper pin is inserted into a drive jumper pin and shorted, it becomes a normal personal computer operation mode that specifies the address of the disk to be read / written, etc., and it is opened without inserting a jumper pin May be configured to be in a whitening program execution mode, and in short, it may be configured to switch between a normal personal computer operation mode and a whitening program execution mode. Further, the HDD unit 4 is provided with a connection connector 21 and a power connector 21A for connecting to the main board of the personal computer 1, and power is supplied from the power connector 21A to the control board 8 of the HDD unit 4. The HDD unit 4 is detachably fixed in the housing 1A of the personal computer 1, and when it is fixed in the housing 1A, the drive jumper pins 20 and 20A are directly operated from the outer surface of the housing 1A. However, it is possible to switch to execution of the whitening program by the drive jumper pins 20 by removing a part of the wall surface of the housing 1A and removing the HDD unit 4 from the housing 1A. On the outer surface side of the housing 1A, a power lamp 23 that is turned on when power is supplied to the HDD unit 4 and an access lamp 25 of the HDD unit 4 are provided as in a general personal computer. In addition, the case 1A and the control board 8 are provided with a confirmation lamp 22 that turns off when the last cylinder of the HDD unit 4 is erased by the whitening program. The confirmation lamp 22 blinks in normal operation, but the setting of blinking of the access lamp 22 is free.

  The HDD unit 4 configured as described above can be switched between a personal computer operation mode and a whitening program execution mode by a drive jumper pin 20 provided in the HDD unit 4. The execution process will be described.

  As shown in the flowchart of FIG. 3, the power of the HDD unit 4 to be subjected to the whitening program is turned off (step S1), and the HDD unit 4 is removed from the housing 1A (step S2). In this manner, the drive jumper pin 20 is switched from the personal computer operation mode to the whitening program execution mode in a state where it is removed from the housing 1A (step S3). Thereafter, when the personal computer 1 is turned on (step S4), the whitening program execution process is started (step S5). That is, the whitening program overwrites with the specified value in all sectors of the hard disk. The overwrite value may be any value as long as it has no meaning. In short, if the value is the same, whitening processing is performed if all recognized sectors are overwritten. If the last cylinder of the HDD unit 4 is overwritten, the whitening process is completed (step S6), and the confirmation lamp 22 is turned on (step S7). The user confirms that the whitening process has been completed by turning on the confirmation lamp 22, and then turns off the personal computer 1 and returns the drive jumper pin 20 from the whitening program execution mode to the personal computer operation mode. The unit 4 is returned to the housing 1A. Thereafter, the personal computer 1 is turned on to start up the personal computer 1 (step S8). Here, by confirming that the access lamp 25 of the personal computer 1 is not turned on and that the personal computer 1 does not start up, the user can confirm that the whitening process has been performed normally and the whitening process has been completed (step S9). Is completed.

  As described above, in this embodiment, the HDD unit 4 is provided with the whitening program and the circuit 11 for executing the whitening program, and the personal computer operation mode is set by setting the drive jumper pin 20 provided in the HDD unit 4. By making it possible to switch whether to execute the whitening program, the whitening program of the HDD unit 4 can be executed by the HDD unit 4 alone, and all data stored in the HDD unit 4 can be erased by the whitening program. it can. Therefore, it is not necessary to provide a separate drive device for executing the whitening program. As a result, the whitening program can be executed by the HDD unit 4 alone without depending on the drive device attached to the personal computer 1, so that the whitening process of the HDD unit 4 can be performed stably over a long period of time. Even when a plurality of HDD units 4 are mounted on one personal computer 1 by adding HDD units 4 or the like, a whitening program is incorporated in each of these HDD units 4. The whitening process can be performed all at once and the whitening process can be performed in a short time, so that the working time can be greatly shortened and the working efficiency can be improved. Further, by providing the confirmation lamp 22, the user can easily confirm that the whitening process has been completed, and if the personal computer 1 does not start up thereafter, the user can confirm that the whitening process has been performed normally. The HDD unit 4 can be discarded or transferred.

  4 and 5 show a second embodiment of the present invention. The same reference numerals are given to the portions common to the first embodiment, the description of the portions overlapping with the first embodiment is omitted, and different portions are described. Only explained.

  In the first embodiment, the example in which the whitening program is incorporated in the HDD unit 4 has been shown. However, in this embodiment, the destruction unit that makes it impossible to read data in the disk 5 is built in the HDD unit 4. Yes.

  As a specific example of the destruction means, as shown in the exploded perspective view of FIG. 4, a package 31 in which the granules 30 are sealed is incorporated in the HDD unit 4 and is stored in the case 9 of the HDD unit 4. . The packaging body 31 is stored in a positioned state in a corner portion of the case 9 by a partition wall 9A formed at a corner portion of the case 9, and the case 9 is covered with a cover 32 corresponding to the packaging body 31. A covered opening window 33 is formed. Then, the cover 32 is broken from the outer surface side of the case 9 to break the package 31 with a sharp tool or the like, and the case 30 is shaken to scatter the particles 30 in the package 31 into the case 9. The particles 30 are made of a relatively hard material such as finely crushed sand or glass, and have a particle size enough to enter the gap between the disk 5 and the magnetic head 7. In this embodiment, the personal computer operation mode or the physical destruction mode is switched by setting the drive jumper pin 20. The physical destruction mode is a mode in which the disk 5 rotates.

  As shown in the flowchart of FIG. 5, the HDD unit 4 configured as described above first turns off the power of the HDD unit 4 (step S11), and removes the HDD unit 4 from the housing 1A (step S12). In this way, the drive jumper pin 20 is switched from the personal computer operation mode to the physical destruction mode of the disk 5 in a state where it is removed from the housing 1A (step S13). Thereafter, the cover 32 of the case 9 is broken to destroy the package 31 from the outer surface side of the case 9. Then, after the HDD unit 4 is shaken or the like, the particles 30 of the package 31 are scattered in the case 9 in the case 9 (step S14), and then the personal computer 1 is turned on to rotate the disk 5 (step S14). S15). As a result, the particles 30 are sandwiched between the magnetic head 7 and the disk 5, the disk 5 rotates while the particles 30 are sandwiched, the storage surface of the disk 5 is damaged by the particles 30, and the disk 5 rotates for a predetermined time. By doing so, physical destruction of the disk 5 is executed. Thereafter, the personal computer 1 is turned off, the HDD unit 4 is returned to the housing 1A, and the personal computer 1 is turned on again to start up the personal computer 1 (step S17). Here, by confirming that the access lamp 25 of the personal computer 1 is not turned on and that the personal computer 1 does not start up, the user can confirm that the disk 5 is physically destroyed and the data on the disk 5 cannot be read (step S18). The physical destruction work is completed.

  As described above, in the present embodiment, the package 31 containing the granules 30 is stored in the case 9 of the HDD unit 4, and the granules 30 are scattered in the case 9 to accompany the rotation of the disk 5. Thus, the disk 5 can be physically destroyed by damaging the storage surface of the disk 5 with the particles 30. As described above, since the disk 5 cannot be read by physically destroying the disk 5 of the HDD unit 4, it is possible to prevent troubles such as leakage of data from the HDD unit 4 more reliably. Further, since the physical destruction of the disk 5 can be performed by the HDD unit 4 alone as in the first embodiment, the HDD unit 4 can be physically destroyed without depending on the drive device attached to the personal computer 1, Since a plurality of HDD units 4 can be destroyed at the same time, work is also efficient.

  As mentioned above, although the Example of this invention was explained in full detail, it is not limited to each said Example of this invention, A various deformation | transformation implementation is possible within the range of the summary of this invention. For example, in the above-described embodiment, an example in which either the whitening program or the physical destruction means is incorporated in the HDD unit 4 is shown. However, both the whitening program and the physical destruction means are incorporated in the HDD unit 4 and the user performs whitening. You may comprise so that a program or a physical destruction means may be selected with a drive jumper pin. As for the physical destruction means shown in the second embodiment, for example, a needle-like destruction body having a sharp tip is provided so as to be movable up and down, and the destruction body is appropriately lowered by the driving means and pressed against the disk 5. The disk 5 may be physically destroyed, and the structure of the physical destruction means or the basic structure of the HDD unit or the personal computer system is not limited to the above embodiment. Further, although an example in which a drive jumper pin widely used for setting of this type of HDD unit is used as the switching means has been shown, various switches such as a torque switch and a push switch can be used, for example.

It is a perspective view which shows the outline of a structure of the personal computer which shows Example 1 of this invention. FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view showing the outline of the configuration of the HDD unit. It is a flowchart which shows a whitening program process same as the above. It is a disassembled perspective view which shows the outline of a structure of HDD unit about Example 2 of this invention. It is a flowchart which shows a physical destruction process same as the above.

Explanation of symbols

1 PC 4 HDD unit 5 Disk 11 IC chip (whitening program and startup program)
20 Drive jumper pin (switching means)
30 particles (physical destruction means)

Claims (4)

  A hard disk drive mounted on an electronic device such as a personal computer, wherein the hard disk drive includes a whitening program for erasing at least data stored in firmware of the hard disk, a startup program for the whitening program, and the hard disk drive A hard disk drive having a whitening function, comprising switching means for switching between a normal start mode of the electronic device and a start mode of a whitening program when power is supplied to the electronic device.   2. The whitening function according to claim 1, wherein the switching unit includes a switch provided in the hard disk drive, and is disposed in the casing of the electronic device so that the switch cannot be operated from the outside. Hard drive.   A hard disk drive mounted on an electronic device such as a personal computer, wherein the hard disk drive physically destroys at least the disk of the hard disk drive and makes it impossible to read data stored in the disk A hard disk drive having a physical destruction function characterized by providing means.   As the physical destruction means, the sealed particles in the package are built in the case of the hard disk drive, and the case can be opened and closed to break the package and scatter the particles in the case. 4. The hard disk drive having a physical destruction function according to claim 3, further comprising an opening window.

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