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Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Destroy Hard Drives?

Posted by samzenpus on from the burn-it-with-fire dept.

First time accepted submitter THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER writes "I have 10-15 old hard drives I want to trash, some IDE and some SATA. Even if I still had IDE hardware, I don't want to wait several weeks to run DBAN on all of them. I could use a degausser, but they are prohibitively expensive. I could send them to a data destruction firm, but can they be trusted? What's the fastest, cheapest DIY solution?"

3 of 1,016 comments (clear)

  1. Drill by HeLLFiRe1151 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Drill Baby Drill

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    I've got 101 mod points and you can't have them!
  2. Re:not necessarily the easiest way by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The magnetic field patterns are on the surface of the platters. Sand the surface off(recommendation: do not breathe result.) and there is nothing to recover.

    Unless you have pretty cool secrets, though, nearly anything that prevents them from Just Working when plugged in is probably enough.

  3. I'm poor, give them to me. by Nyder · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'll clear them off for ya, sheesh, i'll rewrite data over 9000 times if it makes ya happy, but let me have the drives.

    I'm poor and destroying useful hardware hurts me.

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    Be seeing you...