
122 䡲 Cyber Forensics Field Manual, Second Edition
Hard Drive
In the computer the hard drive has a protective covering. But once it is removed, a computer’s hard
drive has a striking resemblance to a record player (see Figures 4.9a–c).
What looks like the needle is, what is called the read or write head and does exactly that. It
writes the information that you save to the “record” or platter as it is called.
From the side view you can tell that there are multiple layers of platters. It can also “play” or
read the data that has been written to it. A hard drive is permanent storage space on your
computer.
To give an example of how it works, say ...