Erase your backup tapes?

[gsk]

We have 60-70 LTO2 tapes to get rid of. I'm just curious as to how you all securely erase your old backup tapes?

[SC-UK]

We have 60-70 LTO2 tapes to get rid of. I'm just curious as to how you all securely erase your old backup tapes?

You can get super magnetic pad eraser things to put the tapes on, but to be honest the best way (although maybe not the most environmentally friendly), would be to smash them up, get the tape itself out of the cartridge, and burn it

[fawkers]

You can get super magnetic pad eraser things to put the tapes on, but to be honest the best way (although maybe not the most environmentally friendly), would be to smash them up, get the tape itself out of the cartridge, and burn it

I would also have to say that the only way is to burn the tape.

[srochford]

Could you not just shred the tape? I know this isn't going to totally destroy it but you'd have to be pretty determined to get data back from shredded tape!

[fawkers]

i've watched my bursar try to shread a CCTV tape before.... it was an entertaining site!

if you just got the tape into a big pile a used a pair of sisors i think that would be ok.

[Mcshammer_dj]

place in a metal box next to the school boiler plant and leave for a while. One of my schools used to do this with HDD's and tapes

[pete]

Borrow the tape wiper from MFL or chuck in an industrial shredder.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHKBa_JvUAo"]YouTube- Car Shredder[/ame]

[gsk]

I've looked into CESG approved degaussers but they're expensive. Same goes for industrial shredders.

I don't mean this to sound rude, but there have been quite a few 'you should do such and such' replies which is good, but I am genuinely curious as to what other schools actually do with their old tapes and HDDs?

[pavlovs_dog]

We open up the tape and then use a blow torch.
HDD's we just use a big hammer!

[gsk]

We open up the tape and then use a blow torch.

That's an awesome idea! Thanks.

[pete]

I've looked into CESG approved degaussers but they're expensive. Same goes for industrial shredders.

I don't mean this to sound rude, but there have been quite a few 'you should do such and such' replies which is good, but I am genuinely curious as to what other schools actually do with their old tapes and HDDs?

er... we have an industrial shredder (small one, step up from a woodchipper). Have to be leery of ricochets, but it works.

[laserblazer]

I use Active@ Kill Disk - Hard Drive Eraser 1.1 - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com on IDE/SATA drives and a 10lb sledgehammer on SCSI. I've never thought about tapes but perhaps the kiln would do the trick, or maybe the microwave?

[steveg]

I like the microwave idea! We normally smash them up and cut the tape up a bit - if you've done quite a few together then I recon it would take years to get enough bits of the same tape together to recover the data. - Especially as ours were mainly the old dds tapes - it was hard enough getting these to read sometimes before smashing them up!

Steve

[gsk]

er... we have an industrial shredder (small one, step up from a woodchipper). Have to be leery of ricochets, but it works.

Fair play there! How much was it? What else is it used for?

[DaveP]

I pull a goodly length of the tape out of the cassette and pull it to bits.

If I have more time I break the casing open and cut across the spool [Won't recover data from that!]