What's the fastest / easiest way to destroy a hard drive?
 

and make all data on it completely unrecoverable? Preferably without using explosives, acid and stuff like that.

open it up and shatter the disks.

Fuck I should've said 'install Vista'...

Install Vista?

open it up and throw it in the ocean..

Powerful magnets will wipe it - Hydrochloric (Muriatic) Acid - Burn It With Thermite - DBAN (otherwise known as Darik's Boot and Nuke) is a bootable Linux CD-ROM - get a funeral home to burn it - pool acid can work

curious as to what exactly are you attempting to get rid of?

take it out and lay it on the ground
Take one screwdriver and one hammer
Place the screwdriver tip on top of the metal cover
Hit with hammer
repeate untill the screwdriver have gone through the metalcover or you can hear the disk break inside

:::the end

Shredder.

.

Put a couple of spikes through it.

I dont usually respond in the threads like this, but I just did this very recently and worked great....

If you want a peaceful way of destroying the data, open up the harddrive to expose the the insides (not even needed). Set oven on 550 degrees. Leave in oven until melted.

If you want a more exciting way of destroying the data, do the above except throw it in a small controlled fire.

Both ways are very easy and doable at any time.

the biggest magnet you can find

whatchu hiding? lol

Magnets, Ocean, take it apart and physically destroy the disks.

I shoot 3 teaspoons of my cum on old HD's and it burns them up like acid.

Let my husband use your computer for a day, no one will EVER be able to get access to a damn thing you have again. :disgust

He has fried about 6 drives this year alone, along with whole computers. He seems to be a magnet for malware that fucks up computers and drives beyond anything resembling recognition.

A lot of the methods posted won't work completely. It depends on if you "really" want the data gone. Data recovery places brag all the time from recovering data after HDDs have been in fires, cars in the bottom of rivers etc.

A good quick way would be to use a drill, it would only take a minute or two and you could put several holes in the HDD.

i always drive a nail through them before tossing them

do nothing, just open your harddisk and make few gallons of fire inside of it :D

Take it out your computer, walk to any large bridge crossing a tidal flowing river at night, cross bridge, drop drive in water at half way point, continue walking.

Allegedly -- this is the best way to dispose of any relatively small and heavy object (guns, etc.). The item will sink into the soft sand / mud in the river, and the tidal flow will shortly cover the item in silt and it will be gone forever. Tidal river systems are a nightmare to dive in for evidence recovery, as there is so much matter in the water that visibility is extremely poor, and the changing tides make diving in these areas hard to manage. Just make sure you are not being followed to the bridge -- this is why it should be done on foot, and ideally under the cover of darkness.

Give it to Rowan.

Physically: Take heavy sandpaper to the platters.

Electronically: dd random bits to the whole drive several times over.


*shrug*

many good options here

grind it up to dust using a bendtech blender

Sounds like you have personal experience for this - how many times??? :cool-as-a

This way. 0:57 mark :thumbsup

Oh noes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have it drawn and quartered then have the pieces arrested. Just like on MASH.

microwave it

What does this mean?

clay pigeons shooting

Hehe good movie. Yea, not sure why the "take it out and pound the living shit out of it" method wouldn't work.

put it in a MRI machine, it will be done for

there is something you can do that erases the drive like 22 times, i forget but Ive had to do it before when selling a laptop.

if you dont care about the hard drive, just open it up and burn it in an open flame with high heat. anything over 700 degrees will be toast

What would you do if you were actually trying to sell the laptop/computer? What is a good way to make sure that your data is really gone?

send it over and I'll hit it with my cock

LOL -- The COO of my last company was a police diver for quite a few years, and we used to talk about diving quite a lot, as I am a diver as well. He told me that finding evidence under a bridge with tidal flow was mostly impossible, unless what you were looking for had some buoyancy -- and even then it was a really long shot as stuff gets dragged for miles by the tides either up or more likely down stream.

I would find a simple batch file that would write 0's then 1's then 0's then 1's repeatedly to the drive before reinstalling windows or whatever.
The data may still be there, but it'd be a heck of a lot harder to piece it back together.

this be true

not an easy thing to do...

Same here! Sometimes I have to much fun, and can't stop myself from putting seveal nails in them.

step 1: http://eraser.heidi.ie/ or similar tool
step 2: magnets
step 3: put it in a plastic bag and hit it with a sledge hammer
step 4: throw the pieces in a river

2.5" laptop drives or 3.5" desktop drives?

What's wrong with explosives? lol

a hammer ?

computer -> c drive --> right click --> reformat :thumbsup:thumbsup

I heard an FBI agent saying burning a hd will make it completly unrecoverable.

why do so many of you have no idea how a harddrive actually stores data and think breaking it will make the data unrecoverable?

To make the data unrecoverable, the best bet is fire. Easily available since the stone age, and will make it impossible for even the most advanced data recovery techniques to read.

I think the first clarification we need is whether this will be a task that you will be completing on your own time - or - if you're looking for the fastest way to destroy it as the authorities are breaking down your door! :winkwink: :1orglaugh

Electromagnet is your best bet.... get a big ring magnet, hook up a large battery and then pass the hard drive through the center... all data is destroyed and unrecoverable...

Drive a couple nails through it.