Weird question: de-magnetize a harddrive.

[bayern]

Hi,

I have a borken harddrive which contains a lot of clients' personal data. I don't want it to fall into the wrong hand. What can I do to demagnetize to the degree that there is 0 chance for the data to be recovered? Would a industrial strength de-magnetizer works?

B.

[Fed]

First I'd pull it apart just to see the mechanics of it then I'd get creative with a large hammer on the disk.
Once the disk is pounded beyond physical recognition dispose of it thoughtfully, do you live near a deep river
I'd trust that more than trying to demagnetize it.

[bayern]

Hahaha. I thought of it but my old boss wants it back in one piece but my new boss doesn't want him to get a hold of any info.  

What if I

B.

[fat_basterd21]

formating it a several times should be sufficient and it will still be in 1 piece.... the only way to make it tottaly unrecoverable it to completely destoy it, I've heard of FBI reading it with electron micoscopes after ascid bath and fire almost anything.... however it cost lots of money and most of the time criminals get away with a simple format when its not a big enough crime to involve FBI or people with money or know how....


It depends on how sensitive the data is and if it would be worth $150 just buy a new one and tell your new boss the old one broke.....


the only way to ensure that your data cant taken off is to never put it on there in the first place....

[KateYoung]

Another option would be to pull it a part carefully then getting a nice piece of sandpaper and rubbing over the surface of the disk.  Carefully put it back together and hey presto the disk looks normal but you know different !  LOL

[bayern]

" getting a nice piece of sandpaper and rubbing over the surface of the disk"

That will do it !!

The drive is electronically broken so there is no way to reformat it, so there no mean to do anything from the computer, plus reformatting doesn't erase data.  

May be I will just buy a new one and zip it with 1000V AC, ouch, poor new harddrive.

B.

[Sambob]

You could try squirting the hard drive full of expanding foam. Or submersing it in saltwater.

[Rob Pomeroy]

Hard drives are supposed to be hermetically sealed, so you won't actually get to the hard drive platters unless you open it up.  But that's not too difficult (unless it uses torx bolts and you don't have a torx driver).

I guarantee you that if you put the platters on your next bonfire, the Feds won't be getting anything off them.  

[pcdoc4christ]

U could remove the platters, put them on a spinning potter's wheel, and have kids spray them with gold, silver, red, green and other festive colors.  They could even add glue, sparkles, ribbons.  Let them use their imaginations.  

You could then hang them on your Christmas tree and hope the FBI doesn't notice them.  To camouflage them, you could mix in a few dozen old CDs painted the same way.  This would conceal them at least until after New Years when the tree would start to lose all its needles.  This would at least give you time to think of a good way to destroy them in 08.

 

[street1 (RIP)]

I keep thinking of the Microwave.

Seems these two items evolved at the same time...Hummmm :-?


http://steve.deadlycomputer.com/microwave/computer2.php

[Rob Pomeroy]

U could remove the platters, put them on a spinning potter's wheel, and have kids spray them with gold, silver, red, green and other festive colors.  They could even add glue, sparkles, ribbons.  Let them use their imaginations.  

You could then hang them on your Christmas tree and hope the FBI doesn't notice them.  To camouflage them, you could mix in a few dozen old CDs painted the same way.  This would conceal them at least until after New Years when the tree would start to lose all its needles.  This would at least give you time to think of a good way to destroy them in 08.

 

Heh; you are making me chuckle.  

[bayern]

Why can't they make harddrives self-destroyable. When is that puff of smoke coming out? dadada dadada DA DA....  

B.

[street1 (RIP)]

Why can't they make harddrives self-destroyable. When is that puff of smoke coming out? dadada dadada DA DA....  

B.

Too much "Mission Impossible".


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euFDVuDgDm8

[Neil]

Ok sensible question: if the harddrive is broken:

A. Why are you worried about him getting the data?

B. Why does he want it back?

[pcdoc4christ]

Why can't they make harddrives self-destroyable. When is that puff of smoke coming out? dadada dadada DA DA....  

B.

Yeah, MI HDDs.  I'll put one of those on my Christmas list!