Render DVDs Unusable?

A little more on thermite.

Nah- they degauss the whole thing with an electromagnet that would make a scrap yard jealous, and then throw the whole damn thing in a chipper mill. No, I'm not joking. Yes, I do work for them.

-- aem sends...

That is because when the head flies over the hole it crashes. Usually just opening one up and hitting the platter with a hammer does a dandy job.

Unless you have NSA hacking your drive, any of the data security erase programs will work. They write alternating 1s and 0s across the entire surface several times alternating them. I think 7 is the guv'mint standard for "gone". The casual hacker is stopped simply by formatting the drive and then overwriting it with small garbage files until it is full. A simple DOS batch file will do that.

No marker or shredder required, just put thumb on one edge, fingers on the other and squeeze. It will bend like a taco, and then "explode" into a hundred shards., and split into 2 separate layers with the "aluminum foil" layer flying in the wind.

Target practice , pellet gun , bow & arrow or BF SHOT GUN Jerry

I expect it varies with the classification level of the data. The grind and shred routine is / was indeed used on some HDD media that contained classified data.

Yes, by piecing together the chips of DVD the guys left behind. Like popcorn, in Hansel and Gretel.

Check out a microwaved CD.

that is true for a CD, but for DVDs the data lives inside between the two layers of plastic...

Mark

On Sat, 7 Nov 2009 15:57:06 -0800, against all advice, something compelled "CWLee" , to say:

Give them about ten seconds in a microwave oven. Maybe not even that long.

Then buy a new tray for your microwave.

A disc shredder does the job quick. If you choose to shatter them with a hammer wear eye protection. A propane torch will melt them, but may produce toxic fumes if you allow them to burn.

You buy and detonate a 1 kiloton nuke bomb, with the discs under the bomb.

then while your cleaning up the nuke waste contamination, pick up whats left of the discs, encase in concrete and send to a nuke waste repository, like cheyenne mountain.

somewhere in the next million years the mountain will be breached, the nuke waste released will kill everyone in the area, then the yellowstone old faithful volcanoe will erupt blowing whats left of your discs on a trip to mars......

archeaologists there will unerath them in 2 million years..........

by then no one will have a cd reader.so your data may be secure

Not at all within government specs. You have failed CIA procedures.