How to delete old hard drives

[MysterG]

Where are you going to be disposing of these that anyone would even be able to get hold of them in the first place??

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

Where are you going to be disposing of these that anyone would even be able to get hold of them in the first place??

I'm going to be booking them on the next manned moon mission...they'll then be buried in a large crater on the far side of the moon

 

[MetalMonkey]

All of these things are a sliding scale of effort vs risk and diminishing returns.
Nothing is 100% secure, all encryption will eventually be cracked at some point.
It is possible to recover all sorts of data from devices if you have the time, inclination and deep enough pockets.

Vast numbers of exploits are available and there are always very clever people coming up with very clever techniques to gain access to data.
It is even possible to intercept what is being shown on a screen just from the electromagnetic radiation from the cables.

You have to accept that, like with physical security, if somebody wants access to it that badly they will find a way.
However, most of us are not worth the time and effort and money and providing you take reasonably precautions (i.e. don't leave your front door open) you are unlikely to have an issue.

Any sort of dismantling and damage to the hard drive is going to render it expensive and difficult to recover, and outside the capability of the opportunistic or curious.
If you are a person of sufficient interest that somebody wants to go to the effort of recovering the data from a destroyed hard drive, likely they will also have other easier avenues to acquire what they want.
In which case, wiping your hard drive is probably the least of your worries...

 

[awemawson]

Look at the effort the Russians went to bug the US embassy in Moscow. They intercepted IBM 'Golfball' selectric typewriters and put a torsion bar sensor (iirc) in the machines to intercept what was being set up in terms of tilt and rotate (how the ball is presented) then used probability theory to turn that into text. I seem to remember it couldn't decode control characters so these had to be guessed

 

[brightspark]

Where are you going to be disposing of these that anyone would even be able to get hold of them in the first place??

cant believe all this crap on getting rid of a hard drive well i can on here either you work for the secret service or you have a load of porn to loose. just smash it up and chuck it in the bin job done

 

[Smallfry]

Woodburner

 

[gaz1]

rocket stove is my reference at 2000f its gonna destroy it

better than a wood burner

 

[Smallfry]

None of this matters anyway, because servers are recording your every move, so your protestations of innocence, or " I was just curious" will be to no avail

 

[Mark 5]

None of this matters anyway, because servers are recording your every move, so your protestations of innocence, or " I was just curious" will be to no avail

Yes but " I was just curious " does not equate to storing.

 

[sg66]

Cut them in half with angle grinder, quick and your not recovering it, randomly put them in recycle bin over a few goes.

 

[Mark 5]

Cut them in half with angle grinder, quick and your not recovering it, randomly put them in recycle bin over a few goes.

That'll do it, just wear eye protection.

 

[premmington]

Degaussing - Shredding - Disintegration - Melting - Drilling​

Take your choice - my life is so dull - nobody is gonna spend hours/days/months trying to piece it back together.

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But I still don't re sell my electronic goods - phones - tablets - PC's - flash and portable HDD drives. I do wreck them with hammer/drill/grinder and spread the debris over a few bin collections.

 

[Other Daniel]

All of our dead computers, over the years, have simply been dumped
at the local tip recycling centre. Haven't even given it a second thought.
We have a life to be getting on with...

 

[sg66]

I got an old pc from a large solicitors office a few years back, they had deleted the drive, well someone had hit format I presume cause I had all the data back in 5 mins

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

3 old hard drives, after I ran them through my charcoal pit.
No data can be recovered.

 

[brightspark]

View attachment 472406

3 old hard drives, after I ran them through my charcoal pit.
No data can be recovered.

cause it can you can weigh it

 

[jimbo84]

To be fair that lad who has eleventy million quid of bitcoin on a hard drive he accidentally threw in the bin can’t find it despite combing the tips and waste processing plants. This leads me to the conclusion the safest thing you can do is simply throw it in the bin.

 

[The_Yellow_Ardvark]

cause it can you can weigh it

True I weighed it in, with this engine.

 

[premmington]

To be fair that lad who has eleventy million quid of bitcoin on a hard drive he accidentally threw in the bin can’t find it despite combing the tips and waste processing plants. This leads me to the conclusion the safest thing you can do is simply throw it in the bin.

Think 8000 coins worth nearer 500 mil now?

He lost court battle to mine landfill in Oct of this year I think?

 

[premmington]

So just to push this thread a bit further away from erasing.

What is the most secure data storage methods to physically store data away from a cloud.

DVD's - usb flashdrives or portable HDD hard drives.

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I suppose the obvious answer is loads of back ups on different types of media.