Question How to make old hard drives unreadable for easy disposable?

[JEDI]

i have a bunch of old IDE and SCSI hard drives from years ago.

i dont know whats on them. (might have my tax returns.)
i also dont want anyone looking into them either when i throw them away.

i no longer have a machine that has IDE or scsi connections so i cant format them.
i was thinking of drilling a hole through them. (maybe 4 holes?)

Whats an easy way to make them unreadable?

 

[dlerious]

This probably falls under the "don't try at home" category.

 

[pcgeek11]

Indeed. As pointed out in the thread, there is plenty of scope to be creative about it too.

Although I suppose it's not a bad deal if you don't have somewhere to easily dispose of the remains (i.e. recycling station close by).

I have a trash can in my house that works just fine.

 

[Oyeve]

I use the platters as mirrors. My desk has stacks of them.

 

[mindless1]

I take the magnets out, and put a hole through the platters on a drill press. Back when drives were IDE, I'd also saw the power connector socket off the rest of the plastic connector strip, desolder from PCB and use them to make adapter cables to power 12V external devices like a HDD or switch.

There was an era when (IBM?) glass platters were used but for the most part, those I've come across are metal and bend, won't easily shatter.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

A couple respondents mentioned the use of "degaussers", which seemed expensive.

I have an old Radio Shack Bulk Tape Eraser -- a plug-in AC-powered magnet which I've used. I couldn't have paid more than $50 for the damn thing. Would it be less reliable or effective? Comments encouraged, but I have my doubts that it doesn't adequately do the trick.

And -- sure. Sledge hammer. Drill. Bullets at the local gun range. Other things that take time and effort. For me, I just use old USB external boxes for HDDs, and I've converted some of those to eSATA. They're good for backup options when you need them.

 

[mindless1]

^ I usually keep a small cobalt bit in my drill press, only takes a minute to drill out the cover screws and extract magnets, then another 10 seconds to drill through the platters.

Bulk tape eraser... give it a try, leave the filesystem intact, use the eraser, see if you can read anything after. If not then it's enough for casual protection, but I wouldn't assume it degrades the data enough that a pro with an appropriate lab couldn't recover some. I'd be more confident if you took the cover off so the distance to the platters was reduced.

 

[pcgeek11]

I've tried industrial demagnetizers and had very little success. Take it and connect to a PC and it still reads the data even after 15 minutes in a demag...

 

[Oyeve]

I've tried industrial demagnetizers and had very little success. Take it and connect to a PC and it still reads the data even after 15 minutes in a demag...

Yea, I used to use those early in my IT career, early 90s or so, and they were good for zapping chips but not for HDs. Thats when I discovered that HDs have some of the worlds strongest magnets in them for moving the R/W heads so the platters would have to have pretty much direct contact to the demagnetizer. And the one I used was very powerful. It would dim lights and hum and you would feel your arm hair tingle sometimes when using it!

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Yea, I used to use those early in my IT career, early 90s or so, and they were good for zapping chips but not for HDs. Thats when I discovered that HDs have some of the worlds strongest magnets in them for moving the R/W heads so the platters would have to have pretty much direct contact to the demagnetizer. And the one I used was very powerful. It would dim lights and hum and you would feel your arm hair tingle sometimes when using it!

This is all news to me. I would've thought the bulk tape eraser / magnet would've been sufficient. I guess I'm going to find a spare drill bit to keep handy for decommissioning old HDDs . . . . Or, I could ship them to my brother in Nevada, and ask him to line them up in a row on his property or at a gun range. He's got the Weatherby 458 magnum elephant gun up there. Well -- call it a "big game" rifle. When I went to the gun range with him 15 years ago, there was no shoulder pad, and I was nursing my right shoulder for a month and a half over the pain. I remember there was a piece of steel plate a half-inch thick set up as a target. The slug just left a clean hole in it, as if it were butter.

How many hard disks does it take to stop a 458 Magnum slug?

 

[Oyeve]

This is all news to me. I would've thought the bulk tape eraser / magnet would've been sufficient. I guess I'm going to find a spare drill bit to keep handy for decommissioning old HDDs . . . . Or, I could ship them to my brother in Nevada, and ask him to line them up in a row on his property or at a gun range. He's got the Weatherby 458 magnum elephant gun up there. Well -- call it a "big game" rifle. When I went to the gun range with him 15 years ago, there was no shoulder pad, and I was nursing my right shoulder for a month and a half over the pain. I remember there was a piece of steel plate a half-inch thick set up as a target. The slug just left a clean hole in it, as if it were butter.

How many hard disks does it take to stop a 458 Magnum slug?

I recall seeing a video a few years back where a guy lined up dozens of iphones in a line and used a high caliber rifle to see how deep the bullet would penetrate. Perhaps you can do the same with HDs. Be sure to record it!

 

[dlerious]

I recall seeing a video a few years back where a guy lined up dozens of iphones in a line and used a high caliber rifle to see how deep the bullet would penetrate. Perhaps you can do the same with HDs. Be sure to record it!

Demolition Ranch on youtube does similar things.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Even with the Weatherby 458 Magnum, it's a lot of trouble: grab the rifle, grab the cartridges, drive to the firing range, set up all the HDDs . . .

A good drill bit and electric drill looks to be more convenient. On the other hand, you can't drill them all at once . . . The trade-off depends on your profile of convenience for a particular day, I suppose. But I don't have the Weatherby -- my brother up near Reno does. So -- drilling the drives seems to be the best option at the moment.

 

[sdifox]

Even with the Weatherby 458 Magnum, it's a lot of trouble: grab the rifle, grab the cartridges, drive to the firing range, set up all the HDDs . . .

A good drill bit and electric drill looks to be more convenient. On the other hand, you can't drill them all at once . . . The trade-off depends on your profile of convenience for a particular day, I suppose. But I don't have the Weatherby -- my brother up near Reno does. So -- drilling the drives seems to be the best option at the moment.

drill press

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

If you don't want to take them apart, I've found that a 10 pound sledge (along with appropriate safety glasses) is a very useful tool to use for decommissioning hard drives.

It also helps with stress relief at the same time....

Yep, sledgehammer was what I was going to recommend. Other than that, I was thinking of a high powered VHS eraser, which would probably generate enough electromagnetic pulses to screw up data on the disk.