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Best way to destroy hard drive?

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Gliderman8

Gliderman8

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I am cleaning up and will be getting rid of an old desktop computer. I moved anything I might want to a removable external hard drive.
Obviously I want to destroy any existing data files from the hard drive on the desktop before taking it to be recycled.
I want to do this the easiest way....
Do I remove the hard drive and drill holes in it?
Do I reformat it (if I even can?)

What are your suggestions? Help!
 
+1 on the hammer technique.

Try to break the thing into two or more pieces. Then throw away the pieces in different trash receptacles.

Tom M.
 
Any number of utilities will wipe all the data. Just formatting usually won't do it.

The free version of CCleaner has a wipe tool, but I've not tried it myself. I tend to save old hard drives if they still work, sometimes they come in handy and they don't take up much space.
 
There's a utilities disk .iso called: UBCD "Ultimate Boot Compact Disk". A couple good "wiping" proggies in there. But a BFH is much quicker! :wink:

Like Randall, I've kept a number of drives around, some mine, others were clients' drives. Wiped or stored for certified crushing.
 
It's an old Sony Vaio. The screen and CPU are all one unit. Smashing it would involve breaking up the screen which would be a mess.
As it's Vista based (there, I said it :cower:) I doubt I would be able to load any software onto it to do any cleaning. Guess I'll dig out the hard drive and destroy it.
I did save the hard drive out of my old laptop and moved the files I wanted onto it.
Will dissect it tomorrow.
 
This version of CCleaner will supposedly work on XP and Vista
https://download.ccleaner.com/slim/ccsetup564_slim.exe

Also, the UBCD disc has it's own operating system (a variant of Linux IIRC), it doesn't care what OS is on the drive (or if it has one at all). You just boot directly from the CD. Good for working on machines that won't boot otherwise.
 
Pulling the hard drive and smashing it does not involve the case, keyboard or monitor.

Got a skeet club nearby?
 
I like shooting things like that.
 
Randall said:
Also, the UBCD disc has it's own operating system (a variant of Linux IIRC), it doesn't care what OS is on the drive (or if it has one at all). You just boot directly from the CD. Good for working on machines that won't boot otherwise.
Click to expand...


I'm a Linux enthusiast, you are correct, sir. Trimmed down Linux kernel. There are also some good data recovery and "ghosting" warez in that bundle. The BIOS needs to be accessed on the 'victim' to invoke "Boot from CD" as the first boot device, then Bob's yer uncle! It's menu driven and mostly keyboard and text menus but a very useful tool kit.
 
I would use a hammer, though I have a pile of pretty much every old hard drive ever in the basement - I buy a cheap hard drive case and keep them just in case- I have had to go back and find a file.
 
JPSmit said:
I would use a hammer, though I have a pile of pretty much every old hard drive ever in the basement - I buy a cheap hard drive case and keep them just in case- I have had to go back and find a file.
Click to expand...
We’ll see, I might do that. I did backup things I might need on a hard drive than I removed from a previous computer.
 
I disassemble the drives for the magnets. They are good for holding steel together for welding. Once the drives are apart, I bend the crap outta' the platters with a wrench. There was one drive where the platters were made from glass. That was a surprise. You'l need some small torx drivers to take them apart if you go that route.
 
It just might work Paul.
 
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