How to Destroy a Hard Drive - Comments Page 1

Category: Hard-Drives




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Comment Page: 1 |  2 

Posted by:

Gary
30 Aug 2010

I use DBAN boot and nuke see link below for details

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBAN
so far with no problems.

Posted by:

calli
30 Aug 2010

You mean putting it in water with a container of salt for a month will not do the job? Then, I am in trouble.....

Posted by:

Lon Hulen
30 Aug 2010

I would like to ask: Who would want to get information off of a platter that is partially destroyed? and What equipment would be used to read these partially destoyed hard drives? When I had an external hard drive get damaged and I couldn't use it, it would have cost thousands for a professional company to try to recover the data and then there was no guarantee they could do it.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Who? Maybe a determined enemy, the IRS, the CIA, and other guys with dark sunglasses. Maybe nobody. But you never know...

Posted by:

steven richards
30 Aug 2010

Won't a hard drive shredding service leave your data in the hands of someone else?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Yes, of course, unless you go here in person and watch your drive go down the chute. But they are subject to some pretty stringent privacy regulations.

Posted by:

Bev C
31 Aug 2010

Thanks for the laughs along with advice. Reading your article on disposing of a hard drive I could just see the "safety" nuts going nuts. I could nearly "see" you grinning while writing some of it and enjoyed with you.

Seriously, it doesn't pay to get too rabid over the possibilities - government agencies and big business leak most of what we'd like to protect without any help from us.

Posted by:

Mike
31 Aug 2010

Two tips: hard drives are like little records(I'm talking about LPs from the stone age)so you can freeze the disks after you take the hard drive apart and crack them like taffy with a hammer.2 Boll the disks till they are completely pliable and wearing gloves twist into pretzels.Combine both boil and twist: freeze and crack,if you're real nervous and about your info!

Posted by:

Pierre
31 Aug 2010

Would not merely painting it with an epoxy type (waterproof) paint, or an acrylic type paint (eg: nail polish is a cheap acrylic type) do the job?

1) The heads cannot read through a couple of coats of paint.
2) If the paint is bumpy (like the sandy paint used to paint around swimming pools) the heads hit the paint and crash.
3) If they try remove the paint.... they ruin the read heads or the platters.....

And a "Dremmel" tool can make quick nasty little scratches on the platters, if you are wearing safety glasses...

Then too, this next method ALWAYS works:
Mail your hard drive, along with $10, and 2 Snickers bars to:
Bob Rankin.....
... and let him have some fun.
it almost sounds like a Robert Ludlum novel.
"The Rankin Drive"
A new 3D movie, coming in the fall of 2010.
(Contact me for the plot, rob!)

Posted by:

Lany Smith
31 Aug 2010

I dismantle the hard drive, taking it apart as much as possible. I save the screws and any other parts I might be able to use later. Then I take the platters and make wind chimes out of them. I have also used the platters and a few other parts to make deco art for my computer room walls. (Makes a great conversation piece.) The boards and anything else I don't want gets tossed in a box and given to the local computer recycler.
I also know of some jewelry designers who would probably love to get old drive boards (and other drive/computer parts) to make earrings or pendants from.

Posted by:

Joop
31 Aug 2010

I remove HDisk, take it down to shoreline, go on a long pier out into the water and drop it; Abot 20 mtrs deep. Done occaisonally and who knows what in 1oo yrs?

Posted by:

tuffsheet
31 Aug 2010

I'm with Bev C and Pierre on this one! 95% of people who replaces a hard drive shouldn't worry too much about their info unless they are CEO's of major corporations. First of all....How would somebody know WHEN you are getting rid of a H/D? and secondly...It is a precision piece of equipment, backing over it with the rear tires of your car would pretty much disable it! Now lets discuss something that applies to us common folks and not those who work for DOD, FBI, CIA, DEA,etc.

Posted by:

Nellie Bandelier
31 Aug 2010

Now I know why I have so many old, old computers stored in the basement. Just read above that some jewelry designers might use some parts; I do mosaics, maybe I should cut them up and use them!!

I'm glad I decided to post since I just now found below where I could post a question. I always wondered how to ask one each time you suggest posting questions to you!!
Nellie

Posted by:

Ted P
31 Aug 2010

You may hammer, boil, burn, warp, acidify, grind, drill or feed them to Kirstie Alley and there will still be the remote possibility that traces of your blowfish-encrypted penis photos can be recovered from the remaining shreds of platter. There is really only one way to eliminate all the traces from this universe. Send them into the galactic black hole (or a nearby smaller one.) Since this is highly impractical at the current epoch, the next preferable method would be to send them in a rocket to the center of the sun. Unfortunately, the supply of space vehicles is rather limited and cost-prohibitive at this time. The next two best methods would have to be terrestrial in execution: 1. Exploding a low-yield tactical thermo-nuclear device in a vacant culvert outside of town or, 2. Disposal in an active volcanic caldera. However, keep in mind the last two methods are not foolproof.

Posted by:

Paul VdB
31 Aug 2010

Maybe a good subject for "Myth Busters" ...

Posted by:

gcai
01 Sep 2010

Do I sense a degree of paranoia?
Do the super erase (see http://eraser.heidi.ie/) and if you feel that is not enough a sledge hammer will feel real good. Or an angle grinder with a metal cutting blade 2 passes and your HD is toast - could make an interesting paperweight :-)

Posted by:

Ericthecmh
02 Sep 2010

Just curious, but if you reformat your hard drive by setting every bit to for example, 0, how would a hacker recover the data previously on the hard drive?

Posted by:

denedg
03 Sep 2010

Another possibility is to run KILLDISK. That will wipe the hard drive clean, especially after 2-3 passes for most people.

Posted by:

Larry
08 Sep 2010

I disassemble the drives, and make "High-Tech" wind chimes from platters of various sizes, using high-test fishing like. (ca. 20 lb. test or greater.) After a few months in the elements,there's little chance anyone would even try to recover data from such disks that had been already "wiped." Using a hammer to break the platters into parts is usually pretty effective, with the help of a bench vise and eye protection.

Posted by:

Laurie
08 Sep 2010

I have a friend with a car-smasher (he picks up abandoned automobiles for the county, removes anything usable and flattens the rest for metal recyclers.) When I had a pc to get rid of, he put it in the back seat of a car that was going to be flattened and that took care of it. A local junk yard might be able to do the deed also.

Posted by:

Mike
08 Sep 2010

I had an XP computer die. I no longer had the recovery disc to restore it, XP was no longer sold, and the cost of any that I might find was almost as much as replacing the whole computer. And I sure wasn't going through all the trouble to hook up a tiny 35Gb drive to a new computer just to erase it. A cheap sledge hammer, or the back tire of my pickup, was sufficient to destroy whatever personal data MIGHT have been valuable. Sure, maybe the CIA is able to recover traces of some data, but why would they? For ID thieves, the cost/benefit ratio, not to mention sheer time, is WAY out of their realm.

Posted by:

Walter
09 Sep 2010

I just use the linux utility shred to clean up a hard drive. It write random or sequences over all the information several times. Just boot Knopix and run it. The last time through it can write straight zeros so that it looks like it was simply wiped. Even the NSA would have trouble with a nicely shredded hard drive.

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