Do we still smash hard drives with hammers?

[Dead]

I've entered my information in over a hundred boxes......got me thinking? Anyone can revive these old drives and wreak havoc on all past information, so do you kill old boxes or just stack them in the garage like gladiator weapons like i do?

[Goethe]

smash 'n' burn

[PornDiscounts-V]

Run a good wiper. Donate. I usually donate or sell on Craiglist if it's worth my time. As a full system.

[Dead]

Well hundreds was a bit of a stretch....more like 25 i can count, still scary as fuck

[Dead]

Originally Posted by PornDiscounts-V

Run a good wiper. Donate. I usually donate or sell on Craiglist if it's worth my time. As a full system.

Thing is I usually hand me down the good ones,...still auto fill is a complete info locker that can not be fuked unless its a full re-install. Just got me thinking of the next wave of identity theft, shits going to be real!

[GFED]

Disassemble the drives and separate the platters to dispose of in different locations.

[onwebcam]

Just asked Hillary, she said bleachbit and then smash..

[Dead]

Originally Posted by GFED

Disassemble the drives and separate the platters to dispose of in different locations.

That bit made me chuckle
,. it almost like hiding a dead body

[GFED]

Originally Posted by Dead

That bit made me chuckle
,. it almost like hiding a dead body

Exactly.

[Bladewire]

Originally Posted by GFED

Exactly.

[kane]

I do. A handful of years ago I had my identity stolen. Since then I have paid more attention to some things. Hard drives are double checked to make sure there is nothing on them I need and haven't backed up then I smash them. My brother's job has one of those machines that shreds metal so when I get a bucket of smashed hard drives I take it there and have the machine shred it all into little bits.

[Dead]

Right on, Fed Shred, i saw this place when i was picking up stones the other weekend

[Dead]

One step furthur....my son will get search results from amazon recommendations based on hardware i was searching? Fukin insane ...yes we have sent him gifts, but have never coupoled our accounts.

[directfiesta]

Dban will do the job ...

[bronco67]

Only if that hard drive had really pissed me off.

[bronco67]

Have you ever seen what actually goes on inside a mechanical hard drive to meticulously grab data at mind-blowing speeds? It's amazing they work longer than 10 seconds without flying apart. We can make hard drives that are pretty reliable but the printers are still a pain in the ass.

[RyuLion]

Originally Posted by GFED

Disassemble the drives and separate the platters to dispose of in different locations.

yeah, you can definitely get at least beer $$ with recycling..

[Mr Pheer]

Oxy/Acetylene torch or my favorite way, target practice for your .308 (or higher caliber) sniper rifle

[rowan]

Do it Mr. Robot style, drill through the top of the HD then stick your RAM chips in the microwave!

I don't usually go that far.

For a standard mechanical drive, a single pass zero fill is usually sufficient.

For SSD (including mechanical drives with onboard SSD cache) it gets a whole lot more complicated, because what your computer sees versus what is stored in the flash memory can be quite different:

- Controller chips use fancy wear levelling algorithms that spread writes evenly over the flash, so two writes to sector #1234 could be stored at two different points within the flash memory.
- A zero fill is not sufficient because the controller chip will be smart enough to compress that, and it will leave the large majority of the sectors intact internally.
- The SATA standard has a special "secure erase" command, which is supposed to clear absolutely everything. Some SSD firmware messes this up, not erasing everything, so it appears to be a zero filled drive even though the data is intact.
- Truly random data cannot be compressed (since it's random) so an overwrite with random data should clear every sector. But for mech+SSD drives there's no guarantee that data will ever be written to the cache SSD, so there could still be remnants of the original data sitting in that flash memory.

And what happens if you don't have physical access to the drives? ALWAYS do a random data fill when you leave a web host...

[$5 submissions]

Use powerful magnets

Any tips on SSD Drives?

[rowan]

Originally Posted by $5 submissions

Any tips on SSD Drives?

See above. Overwrite with random data should do the trick in most case. Do not rely on secure erase.

Obviously if the data is important enough then you need to physically destroy the drive (after overwriting it...)

[Mr Pheer]

[Phoenix]

just put a spike through them or a pick axe

[adultchatpay]

pour gasoline and let it burn!!!

[Paul&John]

Originally Posted by Mr Pheer

badass...

[CurrentlySober]

Do a poo on them


This wont protect any data from being stolen or recovered, but would make them a lot more attractive to me!

[geirlur]

I threw my last one in a waterfall

[Tim]

Originally Posted by CurrentlySober

Do a poo on them


This wont protect any data from being stolen or recovered, but would make them a lot more attractive to me!

I admire your consistency, so to speak.

[OldJeff]

I drill holes

[Dead]

Originally Posted by Paul&John

badass...

That should do just fine

[Dead]

I wonder if a small EMP device like this could wipe a bunch of them at one time?
https://hackaday.com/2016/10/12/beco...emp-generator/

[Dead]

Originally Posted by rowan

Do it Mr. Robot style, drill through the top of the HD then stick your RAM chips in the microwave!

I don't usually go that far.

For a standard mechanical drive, a single pass zero fill is usually sufficient.

For SSD (including mechanical drives with onboard SSD cache) it gets a whole lot more complicated, because what your computer sees versus what is stored in the flash memory can be quite different:

- Controller chips use fancy wear levelling algorithms that spread writes evenly over the flash, so two writes to sector #1234 could be stored at two different points within the flash memory.
- A zero fill is not sufficient because the controller chip will be smart enough to compress that, and it will leave the large majority of the sectors intact internally.
- The SATA standard has a special "secure erase" command, which is supposed to clear absolutely everything. Some SSD firmware messes this up, not erasing everything, so it appears to be a zero filled drive even though the data is intact.
- Truly random data cannot be compressed (since it's random) so an overwrite with random data should clear every sector. But for mech+SSD drives there's no guarantee that data will ever be written to the cache SSD, so there could still be remnants of the original data sitting in that flash memory.

And what happens if you don't have physical access to the drives? ALWAYS do a random data fill when you leave a web host...

Great info in there for the one powered box, but I am better at smashing or shooting like mentioned above

[Look Chang]

Drill a few holes in the box and immerge it in liquid toilet cleaner for 30 minutes, job done.

[SpicyM]

If you have SSD, encrypt the whole drive with VeraCrypt. Then in case you want to replace the drive, you just need to format or wipe the drive, ideally with the tools provided by each manufacturer - those always contain Secure Erase function. It takes seconds.

For HDDs, rewriting with Dban is the best option, though it can take hours or even days for large drives.

[Rochard]

I used to....I used to pull the drives out and physically snatch them with a hammer. Now I just uninstall certain programs and then wipe the drive clean.

[thirdworldxxx]

[tobedeleted]

I mounted mine to a tree and we used it for target practice with a .45. Seemed to do the trick, and was fun.

[Klen]

Originally Posted by Dead

That bit made me chuckle
,. it almost like hiding a dead body

I actually do this sometime for fun

[Cyber Fucker]

drill and acid bath

[Dead]

should have made this a poll, but as it stands the hammer(and drill and gun and shredder all of which are tried and true) is mightier then the erase programs. And bonus fun smashing shit! Thanks

[dillfly2000]

I yell at them

[rowan]

Originally Posted by SpicyM

[...]you just need to format or wipe the drive, ideally with the tools provided by each manufacturer - those always contain Secure Erase function. It takes seconds.

Don't rely on secure erase. It often does not work.

[OneHungLo]

I take mine out with me when i go fishing and dump them in the lake.

[ErectMedia]

I've got 2 old ones saved. Haven't destroyed them yet but someday I will.

[SpicyM]

Originally Posted by rowan

Don't rely on secure erase. It often does not work.

That's why I said to first encrypt the drive.. read again.

If it's encrypted, all you need to do is simply reset the drive / delete the partition which is fast.

[captain.g]

I save them and when I have a few dead ones I melt them with thermite after shooting them.

[ruff]

Originally Posted by sincats

I mounted mine to a tree and we used it for target practice with a .45. Seemed to do the trick, and was fun.

Another tree. Dead.

[PR_Glen]

hammers are a good way to hurt yourself with debris or with the hammer itself...

a few holes with a drill takes like 10 seconds and makes the whole thing worthless. Just not as dramatic so not as popular.

[Klen]

Originally Posted by rowan

Don't rely on secure erase. It often does not work.

There is program called "DBAN", which is best program for secure delete, but safest method is also slow as fuck. It's been a years since i used it, and then hard drive sizes was much smaller so i guess now using deepest method could take even longer. Tho, once i tried program which coming with linux, which basicly is "filling hard drive sectors with zeroes", took 1 days to finish 1 tb drive, and after i tested it with undelete program nothing was found on it, not a single file and it was full before.

[SpicyM]

Originally Posted by KlenTelaris

There is program called "DBAN", which is best program for secure delete, but safest method is also slow as fuck. It's been a years since i used it, and then hard drive sizes was much smaller so i guess now using deepest method could take even longer. Tho, once i tried program which coming with linux, which basicly is "filling hard drive sectors with zeroes", took 1 days to finish 1 tb drive, and after i tested it with undelete program nothing was found on it, not a single file and it was full before.

Dban is for HDDs, not SSDs. Since SSDs use a different technology for writing data (it writes to a new block each time), it can keep some data on the disk even if you fully rewrite it.

Secure Erase is officially supported by manufacturers and works most of the time since it resets the memory and takes seconds. No reason to spend hours filling SSD with zeroes.

If you encrypt your SSD, all you need to do is perform Secure Erase (ideally) or at least remove the partition. If there was still someone to retrieve the data, he would have to guess the password, which should be over 20 characters long (recommended by VeraCrypt).