Destroying data on damaged hard disks

[FN-GM]

We save them all for someone on work experience.

[blacksheep]

why not follow the government lead and either.
1. Leave the on a train
2. Send them to some one in the post
3. Depend on a private company to deal with the problem without bothering to put any checks in place.

LOL I think we would definately do a better job than the government

We save them all for someone on work experience.

Yeh but then you have basically got to sit and watch them do it, unless you get a good one. Had to delete a load of floppys before which involved a 'dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/fd0' type thing. They had to put each Floppy in and then press up and enter on each Floppy. It wasnt long before I got whining that they didnt want to do the job, so chances are all the floppys didnt get done proper!
But.. if you drill them or something you can do a 'visual check'

[goaliepride]

A drill is much quicker, and safer than a grinder. I drill through one of the controller chips, this will prevent the thing running and discourage random kiddies even trying, and then through the platter if its metal. I suppose it might be possible to read some of the data, but you would need to be trying very hard, with the facilities of CSI Miami!

If the platter is glass, ding it with a punch through the hole recently drilled. No way anyone will read that!

I'll second this. I wound up going with a drill, it takes about 3 seconds per hard drive and is actually pretty fun (for a while anyways) with little mess. You don't need a beefy industrial drill, just a standard use one will work with a drill bit in it. On the chance that you do get a glass platter it's pretty interesting to see it disintegrate!

[yabbadabba]

Any hard drives working or not that are to be disposed of go too the DT teacher, she will then give them to pupils to drill holes through which they love doing.
Some times they are also stripped down for the magnets and disks.

The magnets are pretty useful, I use them as emergency key holders on mine and the partners car. Screw/rivet them to a nice location that people wont find and then get a spare key cut for the car. If you ever lose your car keys when out at least you have a sapre and can get home
Favorite location seems to be tucked inside the rear bumper, you cant see the key and can only really find it if you know its there in the first place.

[DrPerceptron]

with a drill bit in it.

I knew I was going wrong somewhere!

I made a Chair out of ours - after someone stole our real chair!

[enjay]

Fun though this is, surely it is only worth doing on laptop and server disks - "regular" workstations don't have anything all that sensitive on them, do they? I hope not anyway, as we had a PC stolen from our staff room last week...

[ICT_GUY]

.45 cal Black Powder Revolver, now that's stress busting.

I always take them apart and use the magnets inside as fridge magnets. Very strong fridge magnets.

[blacksheep]

Fun though this is, surely it is only worth doing on laptop and server disks - "regular" workstations don't have anything all that sensitive on them, do they? I hope not anyway, as we had a PC stolen from our staff room last week...

No I wouldnt bother deleted them. If it was from the heads laptop or similar I might make more effort but standard workstations drives just hit the bin! Most stuff is on network drives, and some staff might dump stuff on C (where I havent protected it) and pupils desktops are mopped up after logoff
Obviously I am missing the fun with the magnets though!

[m1ddy]

Well....I ended up taking the shield off a couple and putting a screwdriver through the platter. *smash*. The other drives have the shield riverted to them so i just hit them REALLY hard with a good hammer. Now they rattle really well.

[sammy]

Driller Killer all the way buddy.

[Galway]

Open them up. Remove the big head acuator magnets, screw them to the wall and use them as magnetic paper holders.

Use the platters as coffee mat's, or use them in a Oddjob moment against anoying staff.

Use the hex screws to foil staff wanting to remove covers.

Save the chassis to cash in once a year to buy coffee n milk at Xmas.

[Midget]

buy one of those "will it blend" blenders and use that

[mac_shinobi]

put a higher voltage through them so it screws the interface boards etc up and then go to the DT department to saw / drill them or w/e. Drill out the middle spindle part lol

[richard_s]

I've put one through a trailer mounted wood chiper once. Now that was fun

[john]

Piller Drill and an afternoon in the design department is what I did with my stack last year,