Disposing of old desktop

DigForVictory

My approach is slightly one branch along the evolutionary tree, I drill holes in it til the graphite dust puddles at my feet.

Not because of security but because it's fun....

agrinnall

pmartin86 wrote: »

Without wanting to start an argument, thats the exact sort of "IT worker" that give the rest of us a bad name.

Rubbish, while it's not the only way (aardvark has suggested another) it's one that anyone can do, whether they are an IT expert or not. What method would you suggest as you appear not to like the hammer option? [I too am an ex-IT worker, 27 years, although much of it was spent on mainframe systems where I rarely got to see any hardware].

Lumstorm

My approach to dealing with the hard drive of an old machine is to spend a few quid and put in a usb caddy then use it with your new machine as an external drive. One of my old laptops gave me an 80G external drive for £3. But people always seem to get hung up on everything must be destroyed instead of being reused.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BLACK-2-5-SATA-to-USB-HARD-DRIVE-CADDY-HDD-CASE-ENCLOSURE-/310792272277?hash=item485ca9b995:g:EicAAMXQWzNSf9JQ There a quik look on ebay £2.95 and you have an external drive to use or just keep whats on it.

bouicca21

Now that's very mse. Does it work?

boliston

I would just hang onto a drive as they take up very little space and can be handy if a drive dies and you need one to tide you over. Often desktops have room for several drives so you could just stick it in your new pc.

somersethillbilly

Some good suggestions above regarding reusing the HDD, it beats me why so many people are intent on physical destruction of working HDDs when they can be repurposed.

forgotmyname

I take the dead ones apart because the parts are so useful. Those little motors spin very quickly, platters are ideal for making washers and spacers etc.

The aluminium shells get melted down and i make castings from them.

If your really bored you can extract the gold from the board, but it will probably cost you £25 to get 50p worth of gold.

Not one of them has ever been wiped, or had destructive means just to erase data. You dont need to kill the drive to do that, you can download tools that will do it. And more securely than hitting it with a hammer or shredding it.

One of the tech shows had a specialist who said he can recover data from a piece of platter thats 0.25mm in size.
If you hape erased and overwritten the entire drive then there will ne nothing to recover. Just damaging it wont destroy all that data.

bsod

forgotmyname wrote: »

One of the tech shows had a specialist who said he can recover data from a piece of platter thats 0.25mm in size.

citation?

which recycling centre does he work at

if it's not going to be reused, hammer + glass substrate, http://maisonbisson.com/files/2010/11/hard-drive-broken-cracked-1024x1024.jpg one second, no torx screwdrivers or drill bits to find.

dban or full format can takes hours or days

Robisere

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Dell+Dimension+4600+RAM+Replacement/7095

Full Guide to stripping, follow other links there.

Silvertabby

“ Mr S (retired IT) says the only way to destroy a hard drive is with a hammer.
Originally posted by Silvertabby ”
Without wanting to start an argument, thats the exact sort of "IT worker" that give the rest of us a bad name.

pmartin - you obviously don't work for HM Forces, as Mr S did. I suppose it depends on what information may be gleaned from an 'intact' hard drive if it were to fall into the wrong hands.