Hard drives forensic examiners tackle may be as little as 20 gigabytes, or some newer drives are 250 gigabytes, even up to 750 gigabytes.
Computer forensic examiners, using special computer forensic software, first acquire an image of the target media, then do an analysis.
A lot of the evidence you seek will not be visible to the untrained eye. You won’t find it in a Word document by using Windows Explorer, or by starting a program from a shortcut on the desktop.
About the team
Dave Pettinari:
A 20-year veteran of the Pueblo County, Colo., Sheriff's Office (since 1987), formed and is led a high-technology crimes unit, including participation in the Colorado Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (more than 300 arrests since February 1999 - 2006).
He has taught numerous national and state-level seminars on computer crime, use of the Internet for law enforcement, the future of policing and community policing. He taught previously for Internet Crimes Inc., and now teaches Device Seizure (formely PDA seizure and Cell Seizure) courses across the country for Paraben Inc.
In all, he has published 100+ articles in national publications over the years, about one-fourth of them on computer crime and Internet crime topics.
Dave Pettinari holds a master's degree in journalism from Marquette University in Milwaukee where he was a J.L. O'Sullivan fellow. He also holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Regis College in Denver.
A certified peace officer, he attended the School of Police Staff and Command at Northwestern University in Chicago. He has been trained in computer forensics and cyber crime investigations in 34 different schools (total 1000+ hours of schooling), and is an EnCE (EnCase certified) examiner. He is also a certified cell phone and PDA examiner.
He is a former president of the Southeastern Colorado Law Enforcement Association, and of the Southern Colorado Press Club. He served as president of Police Futurists International in 1999-2000.
A former officer in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, he served in Operation Desert Storm, in Operation Provide Comfort, the airdrop mission to the Kurdish people, and the Global War on Terrorism. He served as a reserve member of the Air Force Office of Special Investigation, specializing in computer crimes investigation and anti-hacking. He retired from the Air Force Reserve after 21 years service in May 2005 and retired from the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office in April 2006. Curriculum Vitae