Do you do this?

[minestrone]

I know an IT manager that keeps a bag of nails for the task, drives a couple through the hard drive with a hammer.

After a few years of service a hard drive is worth bugger all anyway.

[Lockhouse]

I always hammer them before chucking. Most satisfying.

[bobhope]

Just keep them in the loft forever.

You never know when that 50 meg drive might come in useful.

[GreenerGrass]

I used to take a hammer to old laptops but now we have a nice chap called Julius who comes around and takes donations, "PCs for Africa" or something like that.

[LegendsWear7]

ClientCo degausses them before shredding to dust. Max size of shrapnel is specified at less than 1mm at longest point.

That's secure.


Heard stories of the lads from Lagos paying people to go over rubbish tips for any storage media that they can then examine with automated software and potentially exploit.

[TheFaQQer]

After a few years of service a hard drive is worth bugger all anyway.

All depends what's on it

[Ravello]

One of which is liable to happen if you do that.

I have decommissioned CDRoms in the MW: just a few seconds does it, they suddenly do an electrical storm all over, and the foil is totally crazed.

I'm sure they showed that on Tomorrow's World once, they also showed on the same program the effects of microwaving a tea cup with that annoying gold/silver trim around the top.