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Registered Member #27
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058
A normal format or writing zero to every sector is not guaranteed to erase all the information. For example a harddrive may detect a problem with a sector and replace it with a spare one, making it inaccessible to reads and writes. So you can never guarantee that a software solution will get rid of all the data.
What about removing the platters from the drives, folding them over and dropping them in the 3.5" destructor?
Registered Member #2099
Joined: Wed Apr 29 2009, 12:22AM
Location: Los Altos, California
Posts: 1716
>>There's a movie of their hard drive grinder in action, worth watching
Oh what fun! And it goes to show how serious is the business of data destruction. I wonder if the hot sparks are from breaking up rare-earth magnets. Here's a similar HDD cruncher:
It's part of a whole library of shred films , many with humorous staging. (Check out "shredding a shredder", Twinkies, or the VW beetle). The solid copper anode plate stalls a shredder, but not for long.
Registered Member #1822
Joined: Fri Nov 21 2008, 08:04PM
Location:
Posts: 300
I forgot to mention several things. Quantity: Large Current Destroyer: It drives a piston through the case and bends the platters/shoves the 7200 RPM servo through the case.
I thought of just removing the HDD lid and putting them in the microwave or within the primary of the Tesla coil. The main problem with this is that I would be the only person allowed to use the 'coil.
Organizations cannot just burn stuff with acid. Its expensive to dispose of.
What about mains>load resistor>capacitor>IGBT(or other high power switching device>EM Coil Would that be able to go through the case at low switching frequency?
If I remove the platters and bend them in half what would be the point of smashing them further?? Thats really just over kill.
Registered Member #27
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058
You need to state how hard you want it to be to retrieve the data. If you just want the drive to not work you just use a hammer and chisel and pop off one of the large chips. Using a microwave or a teslacoil is less reliable since you can't see if it did any damage or not. Neither method wil stop someone from replacing the electronics and get all the data.
Even if you bend a platter you don't destroy much data, someone can just bend them back and read off the data. To really destroy the data you need to destroy the platters (data layer) in such a way that they can't be assembled back into substancial pieces.
Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
Considering that there probably isn't much uuber top secret data on these drives, could you not just dawn the safety googles and take a 10lb sledge hammer to it? That should emulate the operation of your current destroyer reasonably well and require minimal capital/training.
Registered Member #1822
Joined: Fri Nov 21 2008, 08:04PM
Location:
Posts: 300
Each day we recieve a very large quantity of drives so smashing them with a hammer gets very tiring. Our current method of destruction is to completly disasemble the drive and the platters usually fit into the smasher by them selves.
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Hard Drive Scrambler
