HDD Legal issues ?

**RTS-Bone** · 01-17-2007, 01:21 AM

Here's my problem:

MY HDD has been broken... for quite a few months now.

The only solution to my problem is sending it back to Maxtor or something to get it fixed.

The only thing that bothers me is that the HDD itself contains stuff that MPAA/RIAA wouldn't like. I just want to make sure I won't have any surprises

I'm pretty skeptical about this but I'd like to hear your ideas/opinions if you have any regarding the law and the whole procedure.

As far as I think, they don't have the right to stick their nose in your personal files but... I just wanna make sure.

BTW I live in Canada, if that helps.

Thx in advance

**RickDev** · 01-17-2007, 12:03 PM

I am not even sure if they would try and recover the data if the drive is broke. if it is under warranty they might just send a new drive and toss the old one. With as many warranty cases they deal with, I can not see them trying to look at each drive's contents.

**Lovechild** · 01-17-2007, 01:30 PM

You might want to try Steve Gibson' SpinRite to see if it can repair the disk.

**shadowz** · 01-17-2007, 03:11 PM

I lost a disk drive once. I think I downgraded from W2K to XP and the NTFS partition information on my second (non-OS disk) was scrambled by the XP installation process. I thought XP would support NTFS, but it didn't.

I shipped it to a company called DriveSavers Data Recovery in Novato Ca. They recovered the files and gave it to me on CDs. The directory structure was improvised and the filenames were in some cases guesses, but most of the data was OK.

It was pricy about $500, but the disk had a lot of business information that I had to retrieve.

If you have a database on your disk, it would be trickier.

If the data is business related and you don't want the use of unfamiliar software make things worse, then I'd use professionals. If it is just an inconvenience to your leisure time, I'd try repair software on the web.

Here is a link to other data recovery services.

**RTS-Bone** · 01-17-2007, 10:02 PM

Thanks everyone for all these awesome tips and answers

It really helps! And I'm about to try everything you suggested...

However, my question was: Are they allowed/(Would they) look at my data that can be found on my HDD and say: 'Hey that's copyright infringement, we'll hand this to the authorities' ? That's my real question :P

However, I'll try these tips as well, and I'll consider having someone back it up for me on DVD's if the price is not too high. The thing is, I have a lot of personal work and rare files on that HDD that I'd rather not lose...

**Lovechild** · 01-18-2007, 07:37 AM

Originally Posted by RTS-Bone

Thanks everyone for all these awesome tips and answers

It really helps! And I'm about to try everything you suggested...

However, my question was: Are they allowed/(Would they) look at my data that can be found on my HDD and say: 'Hey that's copyright infringement, we'll hand this to the authorities' ? That's my real question :P

However, I'll try these tips as well, and I'll consider having someone back it up for me on DVD's if the price is not too high. The thing is, I have a lot of personal work and rare files on that HDD that I'd rather not lose...

If you violate the law then yes they are well within their rights to turn you in.. so DON'T. That being said, you are a paying customer so it's unlikely that they will, many of those HD recovery companies even offer privacy clauses.. but for fucks sake do your own research and don't whine to us when you violate existing law, regardless of how stupid it is - elect better politicians.

**RTS-Bone** · 01-18-2007, 10:58 PM

I know violating the law is violating the law, but I just wanted to check because in my opinion, your HDD data is your own personal stuff, and they're not allowed to stick their nose in it... It's like them violating the law by invading your privacy, anyways thx for the answer, I haven't really found this anywhere else so I thought I'd ask

**BadDudes** · 02-28-2007, 12:59 AM

Originally Posted by RTS-Bone

I know violating the law is violating the law, but I just wanted to check because in my opinion, your HDD data is your own personal stuff, and they're not allowed to stick their nose in it... It's like them violating the law by invading your privacy, anyways thx for the answer, I haven't really found this anywhere else so I thought I'd ask

since your HD is in their hands ... so do expect the unexpected, however it is unlikely they will do that ...