First you might want to read the original article as it gives you specific details.  After I wrote the article I heard him using a self satisfied tone as he was extolling his brilliance on this great method of protecting your data and putting the fear of some unknown technician hauling your hard drive away with all your little secrets.  At first I thought, maybe he has a point, but on further reflection I have determined the following.

First lets consider the process used in most cases of warranty repair by Dell that I am personally aware of.  A technician that Dell trusts and is basing its reputation on is sent to your business or home to install a new hard drive.  In every case that I am aware of your hard drive is left with a return box and prepaid label to ship it back to Dell.  If a technician trys to take your drive, you are risking not data, but whether or not it will actually be returned.  If it isn't then you have paid for a new drive.

Next lets consider the proper way to take data off of your hard drive.  If the drive is seen by the computer and will spin up, then software can be used to properly government level wipe the drive after saving your data that you forgot to back up.  This process uses a series of 1s and 0's (computers don't use 7's cyber silly) in varying patterns  (1111 then 0000 then 101010 then 010101 etc for as many passes as you choose) to obsfucate the magnetic signature to make it virtually impossible to retrieve data.  This isn't a bad idea if the drive will spin up and let you see it in your or another computer.  We do this type of data recovery and data wipes at Panther Computers for only $65.

If the drive won't spin up, then oh my gosh how will you protect yourself? Duh duh duh da here comes the cybersavior with his magic degausser.  Ok lets stop a second, breath and think.  If a computer can't talk with the drive, and or it won't spin up  how exactly is the "evil" Dell technician going to get at your beloved data?  If you already messed up and let him take it instead of shipping it back yourself, then he might try to do what some technicians deem to be data recovery and open it, put the platters into a similar drive and read all of your data.  Problem is he had to break the seals to do this and has destroyed the drives integrity.  Dell will charge you for the replacement drive.  Even if he only replaces the card on the outside of the drive, the serial numbers won't match and the tamper detections will be broken, again voiding your warranty.

You see hard drives are assembled in what they call clean rooms.  These rooms are classified and certified to ensure virtually no dirt, dust, smoke particles, or anything can get inside the drive.  Consider that hard drives spin between 5,400 rpms and 10,000rpms (rotations per minute).  A singe dust particle trapped inside the sealed container of the hard drive acts as a super sand paper particle that will eventually destroy the drive.  Only a clean room environment is appropriate for platter access data recovery.  A garage will not do, nor will any local computer store.  To do so will nearly ensure you have no data to recover.

Ok, so far we have seen that if your drive is working enough to read your data, then it is working well enough to use the proper software to securely erase it.  We also now see that the danger of a rogue Dell technician stealing your life's secrets are slim to none, even if you let them haul it off outside of normal Dell procedures.  Now let's consider the ramifications of letting the cyberdegausser near your Dell still under warranty hard drive.

Once the technician puts a new drive into your Dell (or other manufacturers) computer, the old hard drive belongs to....you if you don't ensure it's return, Dell if you follow the process.  As my other CyberStupid article showed degaussing effectively destroys the hard drive.  You just allowed someone to cybersabotage a hard drive that was under warranty.  Why should you care?

Well for one how about being a decent human being?  The property belongs to Dell in this example.  They look to the manufacturer (Seagate, Western Digital, Samsung, Maxtor) to replace or repair the drive they provided under a warranty also.  In order for them to get credit or a replacement the drive cannot have been purposefully damaged to allow them to ascertain why the device stopped working to improve their quality control.  This means that you just caused Dell to loose money by destroying their property.

Michael Dell is a billionaire, who cares right?  Technically they could come back to you and charge you for the device since they might deem the failure to be caused by your purposeful act.  Whats more what right do you have to steal from the rich?  If they never come back and charge you for purposefully damaging their property, you essentially stole from them their potential to recoup value from a non destroyed drive.  They followed through with their commitment to you to replace the drive under warranty and you repay them in this way?

So what real favor did the cybersavior do for you?  Are his favors to help you or to make him look good?  Since he likes to bash Dell on his shows, are his motives pure?  How much can these losses amount to if he has been doing this for 10 years?  What affect does that have not only to Michael Dell, but what of the employees of the company and the stock holders?  I have no answers in these regards as "no one knows what lies in the hearts of men"  and I haven't seen a shadow lately.