How to dispose of old hard drives

Scw83

Have come across 4 hard drives from old computers/laptops in the study. There’s no top secrets or anything on there but obviously our information I am guessing. How do I dispose of them? 

I contacted a local company and they want £200 is that average? 

flaneurs_lobster

I'd stuff them back in the draw they came out of. If you want to stop them being read then use an electric drill to put a couple of holes straight through each of the platters. 

J_B

and then hit hard several times with a hammer!

pramsay13

With a bit of extra equipment you can turn them into fairly large (physical size and storage size) flash drives.
Otherwise you will probably get a few pounds each for selling them.
If you want to make sure noone can see what was on them before then you need to destroy them with a hammer. 

forgotmyname

I melt them down. Good quality aluminium for casting new items.

chrisw

Undo the screws, marvel at the shiny discs and inner workings then tap said discs with something heavy.

flaneurs_lobster

chrisw said:

Undo the screws, marvel at the shiny discs and inner workings then tap said discs with something heavy.

Boring. According to YouTube the correct method involves beer, high explosives and/or semi-automatic weapons.

Scw83

gavinbaxter said:

chrisw said:

Undo the screws, marvel at the shiny discs and inner workings then tap said discs with something heavy.

Boring. According to YouTube the correct method involves beer, high explosives and/or semi-automatic weapons.

🤣🤣 I forgot to check old YouTube 🤣🤣

vacheron

Yup, I either run a 5mm drill through the platter area a few times, Or I take the cover off and let my son smash it with a big hammer. He loves it!

However, if it has a low amount of running hours or is of a larger capacity (2TB+), I do a full DOD 5 pass erase followed by a SMART Check, a full surface scan and sell them on eBay (this is MSE after all) . 

Cisco001

You can run DBAN and sell it.

pbartlett

put them in a bag along with £200 and post to me - i will dispose of them for you 🙂