Absolutely
Scrapping Desktop - How To Safeguard Data?
- Thread starter George7941
- Start date
Absolutely
The more you can damage the physical platters, the better.
If someone REALLY wants the data off the drive, there are ways. If I'm not mistaken, there's been some investigation into SEM imaging of the platter surfaces and reconstructing data from that, although I'm not sure if it's really practical outside proof of concept especially with the data density of modern drives. It was at one time suggested(not sure if this is still current) that a single pass zero erase(writing over every possible spot on the drive) was not even enough, and for a while at least at a previous employer they maybe got a little too paranoid and started asking for a 7-pass erase. The specialized recovery companies do relatively routinely transplant platters and such to read them, although I'm not sure what their success rate is on that.
Of course too a lot of that stuff requires that the data even be worth retrieving, and chances are someone wouldn't attempt crazy recovery techniques on an average home user's drive without good reason to think they'd find something there.
So, practically speaking, opening the drive, hitting with a hammer or drilling the plates is probably fine. When I needed to do dead drives at work(dead as in wouldn't spin up or otherwise read) I'd usually just grab the biggest drill bit handy in the machine shop and run it through a few times with the drill press. I did take a few to the range a few times, and they are fun to shoot(although you really need a rifle for actual pentration-a lot of handguns will get stuck in the plates).
If someone REALLY wants the data off the drive, there are ways. If I'm not mistaken, there's been some investigation into SEM imaging of the platter surfaces and reconstructing data from that, although I'm not sure if it's really practical outside proof of concept especially with the data density of modern drives. It was at one time suggested(not sure if this is still current) that a single pass zero erase(writing over every possible spot on the drive) was not even enough, and for a while at least at a previous employer they maybe got a little too paranoid and started asking for a 7-pass erase. The specialized recovery companies do relatively routinely transplant platters and such to read them, although I'm not sure what their success rate is on that.
Of course too a lot of that stuff requires that the data even be worth retrieving, and chances are someone wouldn't attempt crazy recovery techniques on an average home user's drive without good reason to think they'd find something there.
So, practically speaking, opening the drive, hitting with a hammer or drilling the plates is probably fine. When I needed to do dead drives at work(dead as in wouldn't spin up or otherwise read) I'd usually just grab the biggest drill bit handy in the machine shop and run it through a few times with the drill press. I did take a few to the range a few times, and they are fun to shoot(although you really need a rifle for actual pentration-a lot of handguns will get stuck in the plates).
NSA yes, us common folk, no.
Yes, those little magnets are incredibly strong (and useful).
Hard drive platters are usually made of glass. Drill a hole in the base, insert a punch, and hammer it until they shatter.
Triple_Se7en
$50 Site Donor 2024
I did that with my junk Taurus G2 9mm. Except I used a sledge hammer.
Really, no one is going to try very hard to recover data from a random hard drive that doesn't function. Damaging the platters or electronics in any way to make it not power up and/or be recognized by a drive controller would be plenty secure before it's brought to the electronics recycler. But yes, if it were functioning, there are very easy ways to securely wipe a magnetic-platter hard drive to a level that no one outside of a three-letter agency would be able to recover.
That said, yes, people are curious and nosy so doing something destructive to either the data or the drive itself is necessary.
That said, yes, people are curious and nosy so doing something destructive to either the data or the drive itself is necessary.
FWIW, I have close to 100 HDDs I gotta dispose of and I've just been opening them and using a screw driver to draw on them like a 4 year old with markers in a room with freshly painted white walls. I have noticed some of the platters from older drives are a much stronger ceramic material while the new ones feel like they're aluminum (easily bendable and breakable.)
4WD
$50 site donor 2025
True - and some just wipe it with a cloth …
4WD
$50 site donor 2025
All valid points; but I think you may be forgetting how little an impetus is needed to get dudes to agree that "smashing something with a hammer" is the best idea.
It's the best idea.
Take it with you on a trans-Pacific cruise, toss it overboard at a location where the ocean is at least 20,000 feet down ,attached to a lead weight. If it was a business computer, the cruise is a tax deductible business expense. 
I'd worry more about damage to the chop saw blade. Use a sledgehammer.
I'm thinking of chop saws used to cut metal in our shop at work. Surely if the saw can cut through steel bar, it can handle a hard drive, no?
AFAIK, glass plates had a fairly short run on 3.5" desktop hard drives-I think only IBM/Hitachi did it for a few years in the early 2000s(some of the early Deskstars-and part of what gave them the "Deathstar" name). It's a lot more common on laptop(2.5") drives.
Bud_One
Site Donor 2025
We hammer and bend ours in half with a large vise.
Make sure you get your TPS report turned in before you do this.
PC Load letter!? What the...
