kill disk - anti identity theft

[Fzero]

Just a quick question and I'd rather you guys' opinions over whatever the top answer in yahoo answers is.


Just want to securely and completely - as best as can for free anyway - wipe a couple of HDD from old laptops.


I have tools but they old and wondering what's the current recommended.


Will probably stab it with a screwdriver and hammer before throwing in the skip too but want to be safe as I can.


Cheers

 

[GiraffeeDreams]

I had a friend who'd plug the drive in, have it start a full format and whilst it was going drill off centre to destroy the whole of the platters, the insides are completely destroyed along with any data on them.

 

[Binky]

At an inexpert guess:

1. write garbage over it electronically
   
2. Destroy the case and electronics, whilst getting dust all over the disk
   
3. wave some powerful magnets near it
   
4. scratch with knife/screwdriver
   
5. attack with hammer
   

Of course this largely depends on who you want to protect the data from...

 

[kuru]

If you know a piece of road that is being fixed, go there during lunchtime and ask nicely if they can run over the discs with their roller

 

[TrashyMG]

I take old hard drives to the shooting range.. .44 Magnum does a pretty good job in one shot.

 

[Fzero]

I did stab up an old HDD before with a screwdriver and bent all t e plates, it was hard work, those plates are made of solid stuff.


Cheers though, I'll do that and write loads of junk data on it beforehand.


...it's nothing too suspect, I'm not hiding from police or anything, just old drives and only small capacity so not worth keeping for backup data really. Will chuck them but I'm just paranoid, not likely they'll end in the hands of anyone who'd bother to try recover but you never know. Just had personal data on in the past like photos, cv, and of course have used for browsing so old logins etc


Thanks


Edit: both the roller and gun options sound good and fun too..

 

[monty]

Format drive. Download CCleaner and run freespace cleaner at highest settings (35 passes I think). Bake in oven. No need for dramatic acts unless you'd enjoy it.

 

[mcobit]

If this is a thread about creativily destroying hdds, I can suggest to run high voltage through the electronics and through the disk. then use a big magnet.


Edit: Bonus points, if you can do both at the same time

 

[commander-beef]

connect it to the mains to fry the electronics: no-one will bother recover the data from plates for thousands of dollar per 1GB. This was favour patent of polish students when police comes to students hostel for search of piracy evidents while ago..

 

[Nintendo]

What about magnets for next time around?

 

[commander-beef]

home magnets doesnt make any damages. You'll need a strong power-operated factory magnets

 

[Nintendo]

Ah ok, I didn't know that. I think I may have 9 or 10 of them at work.

 

[Binky]

what about dripping solder onto the platters?

 

[Nintendo]

Chuck it in the oven for an hour.

 

[elwing]

http://hackaday.com/2010/07/04/hard-drive-destruction-plan/

 

[Binky]

Maybe a minidrill with a cutting disk would do the job?

 

[Nintendo]

http://hackaday.com/...struction-plan/

I want it to be safe as I can.

 

[elwing]

from the data point of view it's hard to be safer

 

[Nintendo]

Hard disk drive

 

[Christoph.Krn]

Depending on the production date of the HDDs (more precisely: their physical method of storing data), the most easy and at the same time reliable software-based kill-all method might be to apply the Gutmann method (using software such as DBAN). If you are going to physically destroy the discs, beware that if you do it wrong, you might end up finding yourself in a false sense of security. Read the epilogues and especially the "Recommendations" from Gutmann's original paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory", and have a look at the Gutmann method Wkipedia page linked above. (I obviously don't know what your requirements are, so I assume that by "be safe as I can" you do really mean "be safe as I can".)


Most importantly though, with sensitive things like these you should never, ever be relying on things other people say. Actually, it's always a very good idea to do own research first, no matter whether it's "Just a quick question" (which at least in this case it is not if you have highest security requirements!): http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before .