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Companies that destroy hard drives to protect data, sad

K

KrillBee

Golden Member
A place I'm working at right now has hired me to go through their computer inventory (about 50 machines in storage) keep machines and parts which may are good enough spec, and scap the rest (anything below 1 ghz)

Of course the data has to be wiped from these machines before giving them to an electronics recycler. But.. my boss wants to save time, so instead of just reformatting the drives he basically told me I should just take a drill to the hard drive platters.

So basically I destroyed about 40 hard drives today and yesterday, ranging from 6-14 gigabytes. And now we are dumping 40 useless computers which dont have hard drives. Kind of sad I must say, since this stuff could still be used in low income households, but my boss would rather not give them away, to prevent the possibility of any morons calling us back asking for support.
 
There are organizations out there that deal with supplying computers to families that might not otherwise be able to afford them. If you dealt with one of them, there would be no contact between your company and the end-user.

My brother-in-law and his fellow employees at SpaceLab Medical used to take home the stuff that was phased out due to upgrades. I got free RAM for my old Packard Bell 386-SX back in those days.
 
Technically you have only erased the part where the drill went through, people with $$$ equiptment could still read it. I don't how important the stuff you are dealing with is though.
 
Originally posted by: KrillBee
Kind of sad I must say, since this stuff could still be used in low income households, but my boss would rather not give them away, to prevent the possibility of any morons calling us back asking for support.
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If a low-income household could afford Windows, they can afford a Dell.
 
Think about the folding farms you could create with that kind of gear. You don't need harddrives for folding farms.
 
I really think that companies and people take "privacy" a bit too seriously. Does anyone really care about the data stored in a vast majority of corporate networks? I mean, credit card numbers and personal info should be destroyed, but the EBITDA reports of some backwater paper production plant? Does anyone really care? I think people take this stuff way too seriously. I threw away an old laptop that was fried and had no fear that a bum would dig through the dumpster, hook it up, and spend hours trying to unformat my porn collection..
 
Originally posted by: freedomsbeat212
I really think that companies and people take "privacy" a bit too seriously. Does anyone really care about the data stored in a vast majority of corporate networks? I mean, credit card numbers and personal info should be destroyed, but the EBITDA reports of some backwater paper production plant? Does anyone really care? I think people take this stuff way too seriously. I threw away an old laptop that was fried and had no fear that a bum would dig through the dumpster, hook it up, and spend hours trying to unformat my porn collection..
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lmao! its so true
 
Originally posted by: KrillBee
But.. my boss wants to save time, so instead of just reformatting the drives he basically told me I should just take a drill to the hard drive platters.
Click to expand...

Or you could properly destroy the data on the drives by using the right tool for the job, which is much easier and safer than a drill I might add.


http://www.garner-products.com/harddrive.htm

You can rent them for a couple hundred dollars. No reason to be using a drill. Forget about formatting, that's a total waste. DBAN would also work, 7 passes is more than fine despite what most tinfoil hat wearing folks will try to tell you.
 
To account for the removal of personal\credit card info we use a bootable CD with a DOD approved drive wipe utility.

It take s a couple of hours to completely wipe the drives, but the input time is just a few seconds after boot. I'll get you the name of it tomorrow whne I'm in the office if you want, though it doesn't sound like your boss is going to want to mess with it.

You should absolutely be recycling those machines, IMO.
 
They hired you to scrap their junk, and you apparently assume that "just formatting" the drive will wipe the data? Yep, your are right, they are stupid.
 
Originally posted by: WiseOldDude
They hired you to scrap their junk, and you apparently assume that "just formatting" the drive will wipe the data? Yep, your are right, they are stupid.
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Give the poor guy a break. But you are correct. 😉
 
"Below 1GHz" can still be a worthwhile system.

You may not be able to get them to relent on the hard drive destruction - even though a seven-pass DBAN session will render it useless - but you could at least tell them that you're going to recycle what's left.

Also, post the location of the dumpster these are going in so that local divers can get their fill. 😛

- M4H
 
i don't see the problem

we send ours to a smelter to melt the entire hard drive into a puddle

it is cheaper than other destruction methods
 
The school system I work for requires us to do a 6 pass secure wipe on the drives before we send computers off for disposal. With the old 98 boxes it wasn't so bad since they typically only had 10GB drives but with the larger drives definitely take a while to complete.
 
Being a gorvernment contractor, we have access to hard drive degaussers and DOD approved wiping devices - all the hard drives that leave here are either inoperable/readable or DOD approved clean.

AND we also have a program in place where we can 'advertise' our outgoing equipment, and non-profit agencies and schools can come pick them up. I don't believe there is a cost for the program to the gaining company. Once we had a bunch of dells and monitors get replaced, and we sent all of the "older" GX240's to a school here in town. Must have been 20-25 computers.

If the hard drives can't be cleaned with software or wiping devices, then it has to go to the degausser to be destroyed.
 
I had a contract with walmart once to drill holes in server HDD's... went to 135 stores in 5 different states. ended up drilling holes in ~600-700 20-40 GB SCSI hard drives.
 
Originally posted by: LeiZaK
I had a contract with walmart once to drill holes in server HDD's... went to 135 stores in 5 different states. ended up drilling holes in ~600-700 20-40 GB SCSI hard drives.
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20-40 gb scsis? Dude you shoulda ebayed those suckers and made a ton of cash.
 
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