Best Way To Destroy A Computer Hard Drive

[Dunedin]

I have an old computer hard drive that failed some time ago

Due to possibly sensitive data being left on it I have hung onto it.

Other than its total destruction ie  having a lorry drive over it or something similar....... what is the most effective way of ensuring no data can be retrieved

Thanks
D

[border-rider]

Mount it, and use this:

Darik's Boot And Nuke | Hard Drive Disk Wipe and Data Clearing

[Kim]

Thermite.

[mcshroom]

Lump hammer is fun effective

[YahudaMoon]

Give it to a 10 year old child

[Tewdric]

I have an old computer hard drive that failed some time ago

Due to possibly sensitive data being left on it I have hung onto it.

Other than its total destruction ie  having a lorry drive over it or something similar....... what is the most effective way of ensuring no data can be retrieved

Thanks
D

If it won't spin up, very carefully put a bit of WD40 on the spindle bearings and then do as Mal Volio suggests!  Otherwise, horseshoe magnet and hammer time  I guess!

[andygates]

Mount it, and use this:

Darik's Boot And Nuke | Hard Drive Disk Wipe and Data Clearing

This is correct.

Thermite.

Aww, you beat me to it.

Belting the thing into scrap with a sledgehammer is good too.  Don't forget eye protection!

If you're really paranoid, open the case (there are screws, probably under stickers) and brutalize the shiny platters.  Also, pry out the super-strong magnets for toys. 

Then thermite it.

[Jaded]

Drill through the casing with a power drill in lots of places.

[vorsprung]

Take it to bits, remove the actual "disks" and burn them

[Biggsy]

I had a old drive that I didn't have suitable hardware for to mount it, so I bashed it with a club hammer (not having a sledge/lump hammer).  That was quicker, easier and more fun than taking it apart, and any old monkey can do it.

Ooh ooh ahh ahh.

< Do you like my photo, by the way?  I took that myself

[Jaded]

Take it to bits, remove the actual "disks" and burn them

But remember that CTU will recover the one remaining unburnt bit of platter, and then extract and decode your email to the terrorist cell making your nuke for you.

[interzen]

Lump hammer, cold chisel and someone with a steady hand and/or no adrenal glands.
Failing that, DBAN usually does the job but is far less fun.

[Charlotte]

Unless you actually *are* a mafia boss, a turrist or an international man of mystery, just bounce it off a brick wall and stick it in the landfill like the rest of us

The chances of anyone actually being arsed to clean it off, spin it up and make it work after it's been sitting amongst the fish heads are vanishingly small.

[Biggsy]

I've seen TV footage of rubbish being shipped abroad for landfill, then poor people raking through the landfill sites for computer parts to sell.

I agree there's no need to worry much, but still wipe it if you can mount it (one pass is enough), or give it a bash with a hammer to dent it in. 

[smurphboy]

Thermite.

+1 - its the only way to be sure. But make sure you get an adult to light the magnesium fuse...

[geraldc]

Our IT support told us that if we wanted our back up tapes destroyed, to drop them into the sanitary bins in the ladies toilet, as the contents are incinerated. Don't know if it's true, but I expect that more than 1 or 2 bits of data storage would have been dropped into them even if it was an urban myth.

[pcolbeck]

For tapes you use a bulk eraser. Its a big electro magnet with alternating polarity. You wave it over the tapes for a while and it scrambles them.

[mattc]

[Mr Larrington]

Cut it into small pieces with a power saw and eat it?

[numbnuts]

I beat mine to death and and throw in in the Solent 80 foot deep

[nuovo_record]

take the disc out and bend it or scratch it......

[rogerzilla]

Lump hammer is fun effective

I found that a hard drive is surprisingly tough.  The circuit board shattered with the first blow, but the casing never broke open despite smacking it very hard.

In reality, sourcing a replacement circuit board of the correct PCB revision that will actually allow data to be read would defeat most people.  You'd need to buy a LOT of eBay drives for spares.  And the shock would probably have ruined the internals anyway.

The commercial way to do it is either to get a big hard disk crusher (I've sene one in action at the InfoSecurity trade fair) or a hand-operated device which drives a big pin right through and out of the other side, bending any metal disks and shattering any glass ones.

MI6, so I'm told, require the oxide layer to be ground off the platter and returned to them in a little bag.

[Biggsy]

I couldn't break the casing of mine either, but badly dented it.  That's enough. 

Place on concrete.

[JStone]

Put the only copy of a vital document on it and wait 

[Blade]

A few years ago at work I was asked to destroy a hard drive so that the data was unrecoverable.

I put it under a 40 ton hydraulic press and pressed 'start'.

Very little of the drive was recognisable afterwards.