Where do you throw away Hard Drives?

[PeterJun21]

Might be a stupid question but can I just throw away Hardrives (internal) in the trash? I have a couple old drives that are old/broken that I need to get rid of.

 

[grohl]

I pound them with a sledge a few times but yeah, I toss 'em in the trash.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

There's a dude in the FS forums who might buy them, he carves up the platters into really nice looking metal rose sculptures.

Edit: link.

 

[gneGne]

I guess they contain toxics, it should say stuff about it in the manual.

 

[Blain]

Sell them to KingNothing

 

[pradeep1]

If you have ever opened up a hard drive, there is nothing in there except the platters, the actuator arm, a dessicant for keeping things dry, and some really strong magnets to move the actuator arms. So there is really nothing toxic inside of a hard drive, if you exclude the metals maybe on the PCB of the control board. I usually take out the magnets and use them on my fridge, since they are extremely strong (they can usually hold up a 100 page document easily against metal). I take the hard drive platters and use them for playing around with or just keep them for later use (signalling mirrors?). I take out the aluminum rings around the hard drive motor and use them as keyrings. The hard drive motor, and actuator arms I throw away. I usually keep the machined aluminum body casing. I toss them in a bonfire when we go camping or something and the aluminum melts and forms neat slag puddles that you can later collect and use as interesting paperweights once cooled.

There are many ways to resuse a hard drive! 🙂

 

[harobikes333]

wow Pradeep, you know how to get rid of a hard drive!

 

[SOSTrooper]

That's indeed a very interesting way to get rid of HDs!

 

[dgsg]

Originally posted by: pradeep1
If you have ever opened up a hard drive, there is nothing in there except the platters, the actuator arm, a dessicant for keeping things dry, and some really strong magnets to move the actuator arms. So there is really nothing toxic inside of a hard drive, if you exclude the metals maybe on the PCB of the control board. I usually take out the magnets and use them on my fridge, since they are extremely strong (they can usually hold up a 100 page document easily against metal). I take the hard drive platters and use them for playing around with or just keep them for later use (signalling mirrors?). I take out the aluminum rings around the hard drive motor and use them as keyrings. The hard drive motor, and actuator arms I throw away. I usually keep the machined aluminum body casing. I toss them in a bonfire when we go camping or something and the aluminum melts and forms neat slag puddles that you can later collect and use as interesting paperweights once cooled.

There are many ways to resuse a hard drive! 🙂

Camp fires are for melting Jack Daniels bottles, silly man.

 

[Nathelion]

Burning aluminum is not a good idea. Aluminum ions are released, and they are VERY toxic. You probably won't breathe in many just standing around the fire, but the local plant and animal life will not thank you. That's a major problem stemming from acid rain, btw. It dissolves Aluminum naturally present in the ground (approximately 1/3 of the earth's crust is Aluminum, IIRC). But that's neither here nor there.

 

[eplebnista]

old & working-ebay
old & dead/dying-trash(only encountered 3 of these ever: 1 quantum fireball, 1 maxtor and 1 western digital)

 

[mercanucaribe]

I take them apart for the magnets.