Hard drive safe disposal

Odid

I have an old, knackered hard drive, but am reluctant to take it to recycle in case someone gets their hands on my personal info. What do I do? Drown it in the bath?

Benet

You say knackered, but is it still operational? If so, install it into a pc and format it.

Next... I would personally smash it to smithereens

jayme1

formatting it (including a full format) does not erase the data from it, and a determined person will still be able to get your data off it.

if the drive works you need to erase it using something like DBAN and then open it up and break all the platters inside.

if it doesnt work then just breaking the platters into a million peices will be more than enough (be careful the shards will be razor sharp, break it inside a strong bag)

googler

Open it up, remove the individual magnetic platters and rub them with abrasive paper, a power sander, and/or break them into pieces and/or score them with a sharp knife.

Or submerge them in strong acid or caustic soda solution

Only the most determined will get past that

howmuchcaniget

jayme1 wrote: »

formatting it (including a full format) does not erase the data from it, and a determined person will still be able to get your data off it.

if the drive works you need to erase it using something like DBAN and then open it up and break all the platters inside.

if it doesnt work then just breaking the platters into a million peices will be more than enough (be careful the shards will be razor sharp, break it inside a strong bag)

Yes beak them into a million pieces will do the trick, just snapping in half will do no good.

John_Gray

Just how much effort do you think someone will expend to get at your 'personal data'? In most instances DBAN and/or Heidi's Eraser will render it unrecoverable. (Unless MI5 wants your files. You don't work for an international spy network, perhaps, do you?)

TEDDYRUKSPIN

:rotfl:

John_Gray wrote: »

Just how much effort do you think someone will expend to get at your 'personal data'? In most instances DBAN and/or Heidi's Eraser will render it unrecoverable. (Unless MI5 wants your files. You don't work for an international spy network, perhaps, do you?)

Brilliant... :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

WhiteChristmas

Don't underestimate the effectiveness (or the therapeutic value) of a 2lb lump hammer...

shaun_from_Africa

I've read some silly responses on here in the past, but....

You don't work for an international spy network, perhaps, do you?)

If they did, do really expect them to tell you do you?


A few years ago I worked in a company that had a very large I.T dept, and one of the "experts" wouldn't stop going on about how he could easily recover any deleted data from a hard drive or floppy disk, even if it had a secure deletion and free space wiping program run on it.

I made a simple MS word document giving my telephone number and a brief message stating that if anyone called it within the next week and asked for "free beer", I would pay for all their drinks for the next fortnight. This was saved onto a floppy, and then deleted , followed by a run of Cyberscrub on a fairly low security setting (3 overpasses, but cyberscrub can go up to 7 passes).
I then gave the disk to the I.T "expert".

Surprise surprise, no phone call asking for free beer was ever received.

spannerzone

Big hammer is the best option, if you really don't want to use it or pass the drive on to someone else.

Otherwise some sort of drive scrubber software should be more than sufficient, but then there's always someone who says it's possible to recover anything using electron microscopes or some such nonsense, the same people who say WEP encryption is so weak they can fart and discover the passphrase.



for those lacking irony detection, yes WEP encryption is weak and simply mentioned for amusement value.

Odid

Many thanks for all your suggestions. Willl seek out a heavy hammer forthwith. Sounds quite therapeutic actually.