Reply to: Disposing of old hard drives

[DoctorStrangelove]

I recalled an experiment conducted locally knocking on for 40 years ago when HDs were big: use a big feck off demagnetiser.

Apply power. More power Igor. More more power Igor.

Turn power off Igor.

It didn't touch a single bit of data on the drive in question.

But it fecked up every credit card in the assembled experimenters' possessions.

[sadkingbilly]

Thanks everyone,
30 mins with a lump hammer and all sorted.

old skool solutions are always the best

[courtg9000]

Thanks everyone,
30 mins with a lump hammer and all sorted.

[Smartie]

overkill IMO. from orbit, no nuke required, KE will do the job as well.

It's the only way to be sure...

[BurningRanger]

Metal drill bit. Drill. 5 Minutes. 2-4 holes each. Done.

[Yuri F]

for small 2.5'' HDDs you just need two hands and pair of pliers or crimp tool.
fold in half and job is done (data-holding platter is broken/fractured to pieces).

3.5'' are harder to break (more metal), big nail in the one-third from center and hammer can do the job just fine to break platter.

some drives are hybrid (have memory chip cache), so destroying spinning platter will leave some data on memory chips.
some are encrypted.
but it is theoretically possible to recover some sectors even from broken platter (magnetic disk).
some have hardware wipe-out function which works superfast (but you've mentioned avoiding wiring them up scenario).

SSDs would require destroying chip.

[sadkingbilly]

To be fair I've found the cases pretty tough for a large hammer. I've got one with a pointy end, maybe a roofers hammer or something and find the pointy end to be much more useful. I can be sure i've pierced the case and destroyed the disk with it,

well, i've hud nae borra.
maybe I have a natural talent??

[northernladuk]

Here ye go...
The SKB patent data destroyer!

To be fair I've found the cases pretty tough for a large hammer. I've got one with a pointy end, maybe a roofers hammer or something and find the pointy end to be much more useful. I can be sure i've pierced the case and destroyed the disk with it,

[WTFH]

Here ye go...
The SKB patent data destroyer!

From memory, Suity was quite good at destroying data, but not necessarily intentionally.

[sadkingbilly]

Here ye go...
The SKB patent data destroyer!

[ladymuck]

I had a load of old hard drives that required disposal. I took them apart, smashed up the platters and then just chucked it all in the normal rubbish bin.

[b0redom]

The boards are very seldom interchangeable. Ask any specialist data recovery guys.

So if you are in a hurry, just smash and dispose of the circuit boards.
Not perfect, but probably secure enough.

Weirdly enough, I *have* actually done this. As long as you can find an identical drive you can swap over the PCBs and get access to the data. I had to do it a while back for a mate who's drive had gone bad with a bunch of important (to him) data which hadn't been backed up. So, basically WTFH said.

[sadkingbilly]

Have you considered nuking the site from orbit?

overkill IMO. from orbit, no nuke required, KE will do the job as well.

[WTFH]

So if you are in a hurry, just smash and dispose of the circuit boards.

Why destroy the piece that doesn't contain any data, but leave the piece that does contain data intact? You might say "it's difficult to get the data off" if you don't have the controller, but the simpler solution is to destroy the data, not the controller. If the data is destroyed, it doesn't matter about controllers.

[woody1]

Got an incinerator bin? Get a roaring fire going with a few logs, and lob them in. All that will be left are a few bits of metal.