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  • dudley0

    Nobody Important
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    99   0   0
    Mar 19, 2010
    3,725
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    Grant County
    I have a lot of old drives laying around. Either moved up in size, style or quality over the years and never got rid of any of them.

    Also have a pile of DOA drives.

    What is the best way to really remove all the data off the working units? I wouldn't mind donating them but not if there is even a slight chance my data could be pulled back up. There was a guy on here a few years back that stripped electronics down to the parts off the boards. Can't remember who he was. I would let someone do that as well, after the drives are safe.

    Figured I would open them up and take the platens out, but then what to do with them? I could shoot them, cut them in half or some such thing.

    What is the easiest way to deal with old drives that won't take forever and a day?
     

    Cameramonkey

    www.thechosen.tv
    Staff member
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    35   0   0
    May 12, 2013
    31,687
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    Camby area
    THis is the way I deal with drives before they go to the recycler:

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074GYGQXY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

    Careful. It will go clear through a laptop hard drive and damage the floor. a good whack where the platter is and its done.

    But honestly, unless you are super duper paranoid and it contains the launch codes , AND people know they contain said important info, simply scraping off some chips from the circuit board is enough to render it useless to the casual snoop. At that point the drive could be read again, but only after the person locates an EXACT replacement of the board from ebay. right down to the revision number. So it isnt necessarily easy.
     

    bwframe

    Loneranger
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    93   0   0
    Feb 11, 2008
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    Btown Rural
    You can blast them apart pretty quick with the right bit on a power screwdriver.

    There's a couple strong rare earth magnets and a some pretty disks inside. I believe once the disk is touched that any chance of data recovery is gone?
     

    Cameramonkey

    www.thechosen.tv
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    May 12, 2013
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    You can blast them apart pretty quick with the right bit on a power screwdriver.

    There's a couple strong rare earth magnets and a some pretty disks inside. I believe once the disk is touched that any chance of data recovery is gone?


    OOH! Yeah, I forgot about the drives. Especially the ones from the 90s, the 3.5" drive magnets are SUPER strong. Those are worth harvesting. The ones in laptop drives are not worth your time.

    and damaging a platter can make it unusable, but not totally unreadable. fancy data recovery machines could still recover the data that isnt directly under the damage.
     

    Phase2

    Grandmaster
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    6   0   0
    Dec 9, 2011
    7,014
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    You can blast them apart pretty quick with the right bit on a power screwdriver.

    There's a couple strong rare earth magnets and a some pretty disks inside. I believe once the disk is touched that any chance of data recovery is gone?

    The magnets are about the only parts that have a secondary use. They are quite strong.

    There are extreme recovery services that can work even on damaged drives, but those services cost a lot. Worst case, they skip the damaged sections and recover whatever they can from other sections of the drive. For most people, physically damaging the platters is plenty.

    If you want to preserve the drive for resale or other use, there are serious wiping programs, like the infamous BleachBit (yes, it has legitimate uses) to write over the data multiple times and make it unrecoverable. Be very careful that you select the correct disk to wipe.
     

    fullmetaljesus

    Probably smoking a cigar.
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    6   0   0
    Jan 12, 2012
    5,849
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    Indy
    The only way to be 100% is to destroy the disks in the inside and any of the mem chips. I say grab a large caliber rifle and have at it. At a previous job I'd take them apart and scratch the spit out of the disks then stash the magnets for fun. I have one of the magnets in my jeep holding my sunglasses and pipe tool.
    Pretty handy.
     

    ArcadiaGP

    Wanderer
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    11   0   0
    Jun 15, 2009
    31,726
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    Indianapolis
    I’ve heard there’s a previous Secretary of State that’s pretty handy at making them disappear .

    like, with a cloth?

    giphy.gif
     

    JettaKnight

    Я з Україною
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    6   0   0
    Oct 13, 2010
    26,517
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    Fort Wayne
    I have a bunch of magnets and giant stack of disks.

    The magnets are very, very useful, the platters not so much... you could make so medieval armor out of them, or decorate your Xmas tree, or tile a bathroom, use an angle grinder to make throwing stars... there's no limit to the crappy D.I.Why things to do with them!


    Pull all the platters, shuffle them up... it'd be very, very hard to recover data. Only a limited few companies could do it at a significant cost. And if you ran those magnets over them, it'd be near impossible.
     

    jkaetz

    Master
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    3   0   0
    Jan 20, 2009
    1,953
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    Indianapolis
    The phrase "Know your enemy" is always a key component in security decisions. Alphabet agency? You better do a good job of physically damaging or destroying the platters or flash memory. Average used component scavenger? A multiple write erase is pretty good.
     

    dsol

    Master
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    15   0   0
    May 28, 2009
    1,554
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    Jeffersonville
    My brother, wife and I had a computer company for 7 years (2002 to 2009) until the falling economy took us with it. We would never re-use a customer's hard drive because I had the software to recover information even if the drive was formatted. If we pulled a drive for an upgrade or replaced one for other reasons, it was destroyed after the data transfer. We took the rare earth magnets out and I have them all over the place, but the drives made good range targets. I was never going to be responsible for someone fishing a hard drive out of the trash and recovering someones personal or financial information.
     

    Cameramonkey

    www.thechosen.tv
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    35   0   0
    May 12, 2013
    31,687
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    Camby area
    My brother, wife and I had a computer company for 7 years (2002 to 2009) until the falling economy took us with it. We would never re-use a customer's hard drive because I had the software to recover information even if the drive was formatted. If we pulled a drive for an upgrade or replaced one for other reasons, it was destroyed after the data transfer. We took the rare earth magnets out and I have them all over the place, but the drives made good range targets. I was never going to be responsible for someone fishing a hard drive out of the trash and recovering someones personal or financial information.

    Or worse... reusing a kiddy porn consumer's formatted drive in a pastor's PC repair, then the pastor's "new" drive fails and they have data recovery done. Then the pastor could have some 'splainin to do when the first customer's data got recovered along side/mixed into his. Oops.
     

    dsol

    Master
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    15   0   0
    May 28, 2009
    1,554
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    Jeffersonville
    Magnesium and iron oxide. Melt them puppies down.

    and yes even after wiping there can be data pulled. Don’t ask.

    That kind of data recovery costs thousands and goes up from there. Worth every penny if there was top secret information that needs recovered or a company's financials... personally I don't have anything on any of my computers that would be worth that kind of expense.
     
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