PC Harddrives

[Mac J]

When re-cycling a computer its best to remove the hard drive. Then what? How or what is the best way to dispose or render useless the old hard drive?

 

[Lucky mike]

Drill holes thru it first.....then smash it with a hammer til it is unrecognizable...then and only then take a blow torch and melt it down......after dark take it out when no one is looking and spit it up burying each piece roughly 50 miles apart!!!!

if this is too much.......do the first 2 on the list!!!

 

[camadeva]

Salvage the rare earth magnets inside!

 

[Optimistic Paranoid]

Drill holes thru it first.....then smash it with a hammer til it is unrecognizable...then and only then take a blow torch and melt it down......after dark take it out when no one is looking and spit it up burying each piece roughly 50 miles apart!!!!

I had no idea that you were storing nuclear launch codes on your machine . . .

 

[Mac J]

I had no idea that you were storing nuclear launch codes on your machine . . .

what gave it away?

 

[WheelEstate USA]

Salvage the rare earth magnets inside!

Ya made me look it up....never knew that. Magnets are fun.
I've got some microwave mags that come in handy sometimes.

 

[Mac J]

What about...?
Get a contractor to dump it into his pour and encase it in concrete, Jimmy Hoffa style?

 

[kyonu]

Take it apart and scratch the discs. That ensures they cannot be tampered with. If they are older IDE drives, take it apart and smash the discs (since they're glass instead of metal).

I say take it apart because the magnets on the inside are very strong, and takes mucho forco to remove them from metal objects. I have a giant wad of them at work and love them! Great for magnetizing screwdrivers, attaching things to other things, door sealers, etc. I will be using these on car projects in the near future, and even on my van when I get to it!

 

[Reducto]

I had great fun with a couple of those magnets back when I had a very slow daily commute across a bridge. I glued them into the bottom of a plastic coffee cup and put it on my roof. I could not believe how many people freaked out trying to tell me it was up there! One guy just would not let up until I took the cup down, pretended to take a sip, then put it back.

Unfortunately I got greedy and decided to see if it would stay in place at highway speeds. It did for a few miles then flew off and thankfully landed safely on the side of the road.

But yeah - disassemble it or drill a hole through it.

 

[minimotos95]

my overkill recommendation, do a full format to all 0s, then all 1s, a few times over. then remove the platter(s) and commence drilling, grinding, hammering, shooting or simply lay thermite atop and ignite. there's tons of fun ways to destroy it.
definitely save the magnets though.

 

[WheelEstate USA]

I'm all for something you can beat the crap out of, shoot, and disintegrate with fun munitions

Magnets and destruction too, how cool is that??
Damn, now I've gotta go out and find an old hard drive

 

[Free Range Human]

I asked my UPS guy to run over it with his truck.

 

[Zil]

wrap it in news paper put it in plastic bag with trash send it with the trash man.

 

[user 423]

Put 2 or 3 of the salvaged magnets on the outside of your oil filter. They will trap the fine metal particles circulating in your oil.

 

[compassrose]

I'm going to buy stand alone drive cases, and wll be using my two old drives to store movies on My drives are much newer than the mother boards on my older desktop computers (I recently bought a laptop to replace the desktop). I have way too many DVDs and need to keep the movies yet be able to watch them when ever I want. Cloud storage does not equal "watch when ever I want" as you need internet access to access the Cloud. Plus I downloaded Handbrake to copy the protected DVDs that I own. Haven't used any of it yet. Need to get the $$ to buy the computer stuff. Computer stuff is not a priority right now. Finishing up the bus is.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Harddrives are concidered toxic (mostly lead in the circuit boards) and should not be put in the trash! They should be taken to an electronics recycler.
If you want to make the data unrecoverable, Lucky Mike's or Kyono's recommendations will work. If you are curious, taking it apart to salvage the magnets is educational. Any way you destroy the disk surface will render the data unrecoverable.