Thickie hard drive question

Hillbilly2

Hello all,


Please excuse this thickie-ness.


We have now a collection of 3 desk-top towers under our desk. I would like to get rid of them!!


If we remove the hard rive is that all personal information gone? We would be disposing via our local authority recycling centre so just want to be sure and don't want to smash it to pieces!


Thanks!

campbela

Yes, removing any hard drives will remove all of your personal information.


You can use software to securely wipe the contents of hard drives. There are free and paid-for version out there. I have never used any myself so I cannot say which ones are the best. I like to take a hammer to mine .

Hillbilly2

Naughty! Trying to be good. They're both so slow I don't even think they'd load up snazzy soft ware.


I'll get the screwdriver out.


Thanks!

Uxb

I've removed and attacked hard drivers with a sledge hammer for friends in similar circumstances to ensure the data on the hard disk was truly destroyed.

I doubt even GCHQ would have been able to get anything off them after I'd finished.

forgotmyname

Wrong. A specialist could read data from pieces less than 1mm in size.

closed

instead of smashing them to pieces, you could put them into a usb caddy for backup. or reinstall windows, ,wipe free space, and sell.

Slow PC's are easy to cure, reinstall windows (with a factory restore partition takes 10 minutes), no longer slow.

smssms

No software HDD wiping system is really worth using, just look how many data recovery options there are out there.
Physical destruction is the only option worth bothering with plus it is WAY more fun and hundreds of times quicker!

JasX

If you really want to destroy data burning the hard drives on a small fire is the most reliable... However the cost/benefit balance is altered if you ever a) burn your house down or b) inhale a load of nasty fumes in the process.

Secure software erasing is effective for what you're doing. It'll delete *and overwrite* the data so it's non recoverable.

The ill informed post pointing to the number of data recovery companies out there is very misleading -these operate because 99% of the time 'deleted' data isn't overwritten and can be easily recovered. If you overwrite the data it's pretty much impossible to recover. Especially if you overwrite it several times with random patterns. I remember using freeware called 'Dban boot and nuke' in the past to do this. Google it

sillygoose

smssms wrote: »

No software HDD wiping system is really worth using, just look how many data recovery options there are out there.
Physical destruction is the only option worth bothering with plus it is WAY more fun and hundreds of times quicker!

Data recovery is for when data is accidentally 'deleted' computers are lazy and deleting or even partially overwriting files just means the index system is changed to say the track space is available to use again although the data is still there, recovery services can go looking for the raw data still on the tracks. Once retrieved it can be reformed into proper files again.

Any decent wiping software should clear the index table but it also fill all the actual space with blank or random data. Once a magnetic particle has been 'flipped' to a different state than it was thats it, the data is gone.

cookie365

How old are the drives? If they're only 4-5 years old they won't be that much slower than todays mechanical HDD drives, albeit smaller.

tronator

forgotmyname wrote: »

Wrong. A specialist could read data from pieces less than 1mm in size.

smssms wrote: »

No software HDD wiping system is really worth using, just look how many data recovery options there are out there.
Physical destruction is the only option worth bothering with plus it is WAY more fun and hundreds of times quicker!

You guys are watching too many spy movies. :rotfl:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutmann_method

The National Bureau of Economic Research criticized Gutmann's claim that intelligence agencies are likely to be able to read overwritten data, citing a lack of evidence for such claims.[3] Companies specializing in recovery of damaged media (e.g., media damaged by fire, water or otherwise) cannot recover completely overwritten files. No private data recovery company currently claims that it can reconstruct completely overwritten data.

Overwriting the whole hard disk with zeros or random data will do. If you're really paranoid, use DBAN and chose a 3 pass overwrite.