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Ten Ways To Destroy a Hard Disk

Posted by samzenpus on from the ten-is-better-than-one dept.

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."

16 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. Missing option by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Install Vista on it?

  2. How about: Write zeros to the disk? by impaledsunset · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      No he can not. There is not a single data recovery company in the whole wide world advertising this capability and there isn't a single lawsuit in which data from an overwritten disk has been used as evidence. Data recovery from overwritten hard disks is BULLSHIT.

    2. Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk? by Rei · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm surprised they only had a list of ten. There must be 50 ways to wipe your platters.

      Just give it a whack, Jack.
      Smash it with a van, Stan.
      Shoot it to destroy, Roy.
      Just listen to me.
      Soak it till it rusts, Gus.
      You don't need to discuss much.
      Toss it in the sea, Lee
      And get yourself free.

      --
      Don't disrespect the denim sheep.
    3. Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk? by zero0ne · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Citation?

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

    4. Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk? by bmo · · Score: 5, Informative

      Who the hell modded this informative?

      It's perpetuating a myth.

      Even Guttman says that with modern hard disks it's impossible to retrieve data once overwritten.

      http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html

      Epilogue
      In the time since this paper was published, some people have treated the 35-pass overwrite technique described in it more as a kind of voodoo incantation to banish evil spirits than the result of a technical analysis of drive encoding techniques. As a result, they advocate applying the voodoo to PRML and EPRML drives even though it will have no more effect than a simple scrubbing with random data. In fact performing the full 35-pass overwrite is pointless for any drive since it targets a blend of scenarios involving all types of (normally-used) encoding technology, which covers everything back to 30+-year-old MFM methods (if you don't understand that statement, re-read the paper). If you're using a drive which uses encoding technology X, you only need to perform the passes specific to X, and you never need to perform all 35 passes. For any modern PRML/EPRML drive, a few passes of random scrubbing is the best you can do. As the paper says, "A good scrubbing with random data will do about as well as can be expected". This was true in 1996, and is still true now.

      Looking at this from the other point of view, with the ever-increasing data density on disk platters and a corresponding reduction in feature size and use of exotic techniques to record data on the medium, it's unlikely that anything can be recovered from any recent drive except perhaps a single level via basic error-cancelling techniques. In particular the drives in use at the time that this paper was originally written have mostly fallen out of use, so the methods that applied specifically to the older, lower-density technology don't apply any more. Conversely, with modern high-density drives, even if you've got 10KB of sensitive data on a drive and can't erase it with 100% certainty, the chances of an adversary being able to find the erased traces of that 10KB in 80GB of other erased traces are close to zero.

      Also:

      http://sansforensics.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/overwriting-hard-drive-data/

      What this means

      The other overwrite patterns actually produced results as low as 36.08% (+/- 0.24). Being that the distribution is based on a binomial choice, the chance of guessing the prior value is 50%. That is, if you toss a coin, you have a 50% chance of correctly choosing the value. In many instances, using a MFM to determine the prior value written to the hard drive was less successful than a simple coin toss.

      The purpose of this paper was a categorical settlement to the controversy surrounding the misconceptions involving the belief that data can be recovered following a wipe procedure. This study has demonstrated that correctly wiped data cannot reasonably be retrieved even if it is of a small size or found only over small parts of the hard drive. Not even with the use of a MFM or other known methods. The belief that a tool can be developed to retrieve gigabytes or terabytes of information from a wiped drive is in error.

      --
      BMO

    5. Re:How about: Write zeros to the disk? by Lord+Ender · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, it's true! As a forensic specialist, give me a disk that has been overwritten with zeros, and I can recover approximately 50% of the bits that were on the disk before it was wiped.

      --
      A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  3. Magnesium by Hubbell · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you have the harddisk out of the shell, buy 1 package of sparklers, if it's inside it, get around 4-5 packages (the metal sticks with grayshit on them)

    Strip the grayshit (magnesium normally, if its something else it probably wont work as well through the case) and crush it into a powder off of all sparklers but 1, you can strip the last one down to about an inch or so from the tip. Pile it all on the harddisk/shell, light the sparkler tip that's left, insert into the pile, and other than it appearing as though the sun is arm's length in front of you for 5-10 seconds, anything underneath shall be melted/vaporized due to the white hot heat released. I've melted through steel grills at my local beach at night this way before, around 11pm 1 package of sparklers prepared this way lit up the local beach on long island sound for about a mile in all directions as if it was daytime.

    1. Re:Magnesium by amplt1337 · · Score: 5, Funny

      And when you win a Darwin award, here I'll be able to say, "I knew him when..."

      --
      Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
  4. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  5. the best way to render a hard drive useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    install Windows ME

  6. Ten Ways To Destroy a Hard Disk by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Funny

    1) .45 caliber 1911 style handgun (gets the job done)

    2) .357 magnum revolver (gets the job done with a louder bang)

    3) 10mm auto handgun (gets the job done and lets you pretend to be Ted Nugent)

    4) .44 magnum revolver (gets the job done and lets you pretend to be Clint Eastwood)

    5) 9mm handgun (gets the job done and lets you pretend that you have a real gun ;)

    6) 12 gauge shotgun (gets the job done and looks/sounds really cool)

    7) .30-06 rifle (REALLY gets the job done)

    8) .50BMG rifle (useful if you run into a hard drive with armor plate)

    9) .22LR plinking rifle (gets the job done in a cost effective manner)

    10) .223 fired from an AR-15 (gets the job done while scaring the crap out of any nearby big city types that assume any black rifle with a pistol grip is a weapon of mass destruction)

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  7. Leverage the spinning platters to your advantage by bugg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Everyone knows drives are most vulnerable when the heads are engaged, and the spinning platters should cause a single destructive action to potentially spread to the entire circumference. Why not do a write operation to the entire disk and hit it with a hammer during the write? Do that properly and the heads should go flying off in pieces into the platters, and the platters spinning with the loose head material should ensure nothing survives.

    --
    -bugg
  8. The Actual List ... by neonprimetime · · Score: 5, Informative

    1 - The classic hammer
    2 - "What's wrong with an angle grinder?"
    3 - The average welding torch
    4 - weaponry, from 12-gauge shotguns to high velocity rifles
    5 - Science fans will be pleased to see an electromagnet on the list
    6 - use a drill
    7 - Hard disk platters are generally made from aluminium, which melts at 660.32C
    8 - Electric log splitters
    9 - An industrial shredder
    10 - Finally, another method that scores valuable points for science: Thermite

  9. Become a plumber by lttlordfault · · Score: 5, Interesting
    After reading the parent article, one thing I noticed was that welding torches and angle grinders seem to create a sense of well being within your average geek. I have to say, as a plumber who also has a keen interest in all things technological, there's nothing more satisfying than breaking into something with either a blow torch, angle grinder or a drill. I love my job, that I have to use these tools every day gives me great satisfaction and makes me feel like a real man :D

    When going through higher education I was originally aiming for a career in IT but half way through decided I didn't really fancy sitting at a desk all day. Becoming a plumber has definitely been the best decision I ever made, I get to work with really cool tools every day, plus I'm at the top of my profession having started plumbing about 6 years ago. I'm one of only 3 people qualified at my level in Mid Wales, and so am in incredible demand. I mainly work on servicing/maintenance on commercial/industrial heating and ventilation systems and see some incredibly cool tech every day. Sorry to brag, but as a self confessed geek, I have to say, plumbing is freaking awesome!

    Kinda off topic, sorry about that. I don't often have any connection with anything posted on /. but like to read about it anyway.

  10. How to ensure all data is lost by Burning1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    My favorite way to ensure all data is lost on an hard disk is to store the only copy of my Master's thesis on that drive.