Ten Ways To Destroy a Hard Disk

Barence writes "Following his blog last week about the homemade hard disk destroyer, Bustadrive, Mike Jennings was deluged with comments from readers, both on the blog and here on Slashdot. Most seemed to like the product, but also offered up far more innovative and madcap methods of hard disk destruction, with a wide range of implements used — household and otherwise. In this follow-up post, he rounds up the best of an imaginative bunch of hard disk destruction methods."

Comments

How about: Write zeros to the disk?

[impaledsunset]

Write zeros. Once. Problem solved. Then you can sell the disk.

Physical destruction is only necessary if the disk is already broken, and you can't erase it properly.

Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk?

[impaledsunset]

He has a less chance to recover any data than if it was shot with a shotgun, as suggested by the article. I'm unconvinced that data can be retrieved back after the drive has been written with zeroes ones, much less that there are much people on Slashdot who would ever work with a hard drive that will end up at the good forensic IT guy, but for them there are better erasing programs. Certainly better than a shotgun, which might leave huge parts of the plates intact, if you don't shoot it enough times.

Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk?

[zero0ne]

Citation?

I don't think there is a single legitimate source that has proved this is possible.

Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk?

[gandhi_2]

Using this logic, all hard drives are capable of infinite capacity.

Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk?

[Anonymous Coward]

This way you could record the serial number and a log, and print out a nice little certificate saying that this has happened. None of the ways mentioned in the article help with things like this.
The article should be called Ten Ways to Physically Damage Something.

Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk?

[omnichad]

Thanks for posting this. I posted one of these links last time something like this came up on Slashdot, and I was too lazy to find them again.
 
It's just silly to believe that a device with such a wide margin of error on "normal" data leaves any room for recovery on a wiped drive.

Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk?

[omnichad]

They don't take chances. They don't research. They just do what it takes to be SURE. That doesn't mean that they aren't overly paranoid.

Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk?

[Anonymusing]

Maybe YOU can, with your handy electron microscope, but mine is still on layaway.

Also, suppose you were trying to recover a specific file from my disk, and you had to use an electron microscope to recover every single bit. There are 1,889,785,610,240 bits on my 220gb hard disk. Assuming one-tenth of a second per bit to scan, you'd still spend about 6,000 years reading the drive to collect all the data. Trust me: the value of that data will have long expired by then.

Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk?

[danieltdp]

Its like this: one close-range shotgun shot to the head kills a man. Wanna be sure the guy is dead? How many bullets do you have?

Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk?

[commodoresloat]

you'd still spend about 6,000 years reading the drive to collect all the data. Trust me: the value of that data will have long expired by then.

Not if it's porn!

Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk?

[jcr]

Nobody's modded you funny yet? Come on, people!

-jcr

Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk?

[sumdumass]

The D.O.D and NSA are forward thinking because many of their secrets can be potentially damaging well into the future. They aren't just looking at making them not readable today, but hopefully not readable 25 or more years into the future when new technology may be availible to obsolete the current limitations to our technology.

Making several passes attempts to increase the likelihood of that not being possible.

Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk?

[number11]

Actually, the chances of two consecutive coin flips landing on the same side are EXACTLY 50%.

You statistics people think you're so smart.

But you have failed to account for the cases:
where the coin lands on edge.
where the coin rolls, and is lost under the refrigerator.
where a raven swoops down out of the sky and snags the coin midair and flies away with it.
where a man jumps out of the closet, grabs the coin, and runs away.
where when the coin hits, it breaks into two pieces, the microfilm flies out, and the pieces come to rest hollow side up.
where Annie Oakley shoots from the next room and blasts the coin to smithereens.
the Creationist case, where God, being extremely bored, miraculously causes the coin to turn into a glass of Guiness, which smashes to the ground and gets beer everywhere.
And probably other cases.

Where's your 50% now, eh?

the best way to render a hard drive useless

[Anonymous Coward]

install Windows ME

Awesome

[otopico]

Hey, rather than find a way to reuse a complicated piece of tech, lets play like cavemen and come up with awesome ways to break it so no one can do anything with it.

Sure, some data is too valuable to risk, but it is 2009, you would think we would have a non-physically destructive way to securely erase data rather than a hammer.

The scope of the pure wastefulness of this is just sick. Yeah, I'm probably in a minority, but this logic is why our landfills leach out heavy metals into the water table.

America used to be resourceful and frugal.

Drill Press

[ManuelKelly]

I use my drill press to drill a 1/4" hole thru some of the chips and the platters.

Anyone who wants to spend enough to get anything off of it after that is happy to do so.

For a load of corporate data a couple of holes would probably do it. After that it would be easier to burglarize you and get a live disk or machine with the data on it.

simple way

[DragonTHC]

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

Re:Missing option

[cheftw]

lol @ ubuntu version troll

In before: "NO NO NO, here's the real versioning..."

Re:Become a plumber

[couchslug]

You are also in a trade that will be in demand longer than you will live, can not be outsourced, whose services all modern humans require, and whose required skill set makes you a versatile fellow.

"I mainly work on servicing/maintenance on commercial/industrial heating and ventilation systems and see some incredibly cool tech every day."

Mmm. No shit piping! What's not to like? :)

Re:My method of HDD disposal

[Poppageorgio]

I work in law enforcement IT, and we routinely dispose of drives that have sensitive data on them. This is our technique. We strip the magnets and keep them on the workbench to hold screws when we take things apart, then smash the platters with an 8lb sledge hammer. If you can recover the data after a sledge hit, you're smart enough to go about obtaining this data another way!