Shredding files on a laptop.

I had a SATA2 drive fail such that I couldn't wipe it electronically. Normally I'd pull the platters out and bend then, but time was limited. I cut the whole thing in half using my Pedrazolli Cold Saw :)

Andrew

Or if said laptop is going to be junked anyway, apply impact technology to entire laptop repeatedly and with vigour, using said sledgehammer.

OOI, if it's a useable laptop apart from that, have you (or anyone) given the fan a blow out? They often get what looks like a layer of felt across them and so will quickly overheat?

If you can see where the air should come out (often the side or back) and where it is sucked in (underneath?), ideally stop the fan spinning by poking a think cable-tie into the fan to stop it spinning then either put a vacuum cleaner on the inlet or an airline on the exhaust (to blow the cr*p back out the way it came in. If it's going to be scrapped anyway you have little to lose by taking the back off and seeing if you can get to the fan properly.

I hate destroying functional stuff so whilst Andy's sledgehammer solution would work, personally I'd:

Boot linux and use "wipe" - or there are a number of boot CDs and USB tools that include secure delete tools.

You may as well rescue the license codes of the OS and any software installed on it first with Recover Keys or similar.

BTW: Why not keep the cleaned drive? It may be useful one day if you keep it and put it into a USB caddy.

Though TBH I prefer larger faster ones for backups.

I don't often recommend Mcaffee for anything but they have a free file, directory and disk shredder that is about as good as anything.

DBAN -

Before totally scrapping it you could open it up and see if the fan and cooling air path are full of dust and cr4p.

There is usually a youtube video of opening up most laptops as not all succumb to simply removing visible screws.

But it says there:

"DBAN users should be aware of some product limitations, including:

No guarantee of data removal (e.g. DBAN does not detect or securely erase SSDs) No audit-ready reporting for regulatory compliance Limited hardware support (e.g. no RAID dismantling) No customer support or regular software updates"

So is it really that good?

If you are not intending to sell it, angle grinder is good. That will expose the disk and a slice across that will do the job.

If its going to be sold, best bet is to boot a lunux live CD and use DD to write to the entire disk

eg as root, something like

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

Thet will wipe the operating system as well.

If you want to keep an operating system on it, pass.

PS the symptoms sound very like a dead fan. Worth replacing?

Clean the heat sink and fan and give it her back working.

En el artículo , Broadback escribió:

The fan ducts are probably blocked. Give the vents a blast of compressed air. You may be chucking out a perfectly good laptop.

Data Sanitization Methods: DoD 5220.22-M, RCMP TSSIT OPS-II, Gutmann, Random Data, Write Zero

For home users with spinning-rust hard drives, yes. I don't know about you, but when companies acknowledge the shortcomings of their products I tend to trust them more.

Mmm, depending what the OP has on the disk, I'd probably want to be surer.

I've bought a few S/H and apparently wiped HDs via NGs and ebay. Just a brief peep with recovery software revealed stuff that really should have been removed properly.

Thanks for the replies, I have gone down the heavy hammer route!

And a pint of large for that man!