Destroying hard drives and contents

[bof]

In message , Andy Hall writes

Not used gas, but a 20lb sledge hammer did the job.

[Dave]

When you are right, you are right LOL

Dave

[Mark]

specialists.

That's what I was going to suggest, not as much fun as blowing then up but just as effective. Ive got a 50ton press, which flattens them to about 4mm so they are FUBAR.

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[Andy Wade]

That's more like it :~) 23 articles into this thread, has anyone mentioned an a n g l e g r i n d e r, or even a h a c k s a w?

[Bob Eager]

Enough car body filler should work.

[Andy Hall]

Yes, they do, don't they.... (nursing bruised finger).

[AJH]

I've gaffer taped two to a spare number plate for the Land Rover, great for attaching to things I tow. I keep one in the cab and use it to search for dropped nuts and bolts when I work outside.

AJH

[Andy Hall]

Well....

I've had an entertaining evening taking apart 20 odd drives - mostly IDE and a couple of SCSI, going back 15 years.

The smallest capacity was about 200MB and the largest 40GB (I decided that nothing below 80GB would be worth keeping).

All of them had metal platters, though.

What is interesting are the changes in the manufacturing over the period. Some of the early ones look primitive in comparison with the new ones but had very solid cases including cast tops and serial/part numbers for the head assemblies written by hand in felt tip pen.

[Andy Burns]

Seems it is only IBM (Or presumably HitachiGST now) using glass, and only since 2000

[geoff]

In message , Bob Eager writes

Yeah, but all in all, nothing much in the way of imaginative pyrotechnic solutions

Diverse solutions should be used here

1/ Shock testing from the top of a tall building for a start

2/ The compulsory angle grinder solution

3/ You've missed Nov 5th, save one next year

4/ take the top off and spin it up with some carborundum

5/ Attack it wit a Hilti drill

6/ ...

[geoff]

Remember the old days of PCs - 30 megs was a LARGE hard drive

I still have one on my old Amiga 2000

[Andy Burns]

I remember some Z80 based systems with 8" hard drives about 10-20MB I think, made impressive noises while doing surface tests though.

[Bob Eager]

Ever come across the IBM drives in a metal casing, with a composition frame? Use a mounting bolt that's too long, and you ground the casing and stop the drive working.

The castings for my "new" 10.4MB exchangeable disk drives weigh a ton...

[Bob Eager]

Bought my first PC drive in early 1986; 20MB Western Digital. About 230 quid.

[Andy Burns]

Yes (or some that had the same issue) I remember a colleage who managed to kill three drives that way, claimed they were all DOA and then I got sent out to buy some shorter screws.

[Steve Firth]

Waste of bloody time. Smack them with a lump hammer until the platters are unrecognisable. If you're particularly fussy melt the platters with a propane torch in a brick hearth. It's a recognised secure method of disposal.

[Steve Firth]

Errm yes, in short. There are men in Eastern European countries who buy scrapped computers and drives in order to get bank account and other details. Most people keep their accounts longer than 10 years.

[Andy Hall]

Yes. They had warning labels about that and so did Western Digital

The large disk pack type?

[Andy Hall]

It did seem a pointless way to address the issue and rather slow

I like the torch idea....

[Andy Hall]

I took a load of old cases and boards to the tip today as well. It was quiet I suppose because everyone thought it would be closed.

At any rate, there was a very large skip (20-30 cu m perhaps), nearly full, for the deposit of assorted old electronics and PCs. There was a distinctly dodgy looking character looking through them while the tip guys were turning a blind eye. At any rate, I'm glad I took out all the CPUs and loose bits as well as the drives.