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Good article on 'non-destructive' methods. However to be absolutely sure, has anyone considered the following?
* Thermite
* Power drill
* Hammer
* Dynamite

Perhaps a good topic for mythbusters? ;)

The hammer was mentioned in the video, but I like ~105699]'s [way of destroying data on hard drives.

What does Vista have for internal security?

There is no such website. I have tried it several times.

Why waste a perfectly good hard drive.

use G part and turn that hard drive into a USB storage.

I cannot believe any of you guys!

Remove the damn thing. Acid crunch it in JUNK car lot and buy a new one, if you're that concerned.

God bless

thermite can be defeated

dirll sections will still damn you, same as sledge stupid hammer. Dynamite just as predictable.

Here's an idea! buy a new one, Acid crunch and melt the old one. fix tht one! I like tp see anyone try, I dare anyone.

I will not even have to goo goo dare!

God bless

Some of these are a bit extreme.
But the best system wipe I have used is Kill Disk, at Killdisk.com. This is a stepped down Govt HD wiper. It writes "0's" through the HD. Totally wipes it out, and This is a Shareware/Freeware Program so its definetly worth the money.

Actually I heard that even hammering it won't destroy the data, you can still recover it. Like the one got burned from the space shuttle? I heard they recovered most of the data inside.
Use the US DOD standard of wiping the blocks 7 times would be pretty secure, I think.

Only a couple of good posts here. Stealth694,Rocketscout& Wintard. The rest of you are moronic children that have no business even being in the same room with a computer !

another online jerk here...

Hey, thanks. I had to go read 'my way' to see what I recommended.

:)

Physical destruction is 'adequate', BTW.

Yes, someone who's obsessive-compulsive disorder and has laboratory facilities and infinite free time to pick over fragments of sharp glass with tweezers while wearing a bunny suit could recover SOME data from a busted up hard disk. This would be a government level job of data recovery costing on the order of tens of thousands of dollars.

Joe snoop or identity thief will be stopped dead by a hard drive shattered into itty bitty pieces. Even trivial damage to the logic board would be good enough to stop 99% of potential snoops. One good whack from a maul would make it 100% hopeless.

But as I mentioned in the other post, get the magnets out, first. They're fun. Even the level of disassembly to get the magnets out would make the drive 'irrecoverable' to anyone outside of the hypothetical OCD sufferer's lab. You're not opening it in a clean room. You're not taking the steps necessary to safeguard the data. You're not about to put it back together.

You can always get a cheap quartz clock movement from a crafts store and make an artsy clock out of it.

I like to take them apart and use the platters as projectiles. Brick walls are great for that.

Best option is to format the hard disk. What do you say?

Regards,
Servicedotztronics

This video started with no sound and shut down after a few seconds. Would be interested to know if anyone else encountered the same problem.

Grouchy knows so damn much, PCW needed him to write the article.
Probably has firsthand knowledge of moronic children.

Hello, Wintard. Nice to see you're about.

If you're gonna format it to get rid of data, just make sure you do the FULL format.....not the quick one. Even then your data is still possibly recoverable.

May I bring attention to a free utility CCleaner which implements:
- a secure deletion for files: You can choose the method for wiping. In CCleaner Settings, change the Secure Deletion settings from ?Normal File Deletion (faster)? to ?Secure File Deletion (slower)? and then choose ?NSA (7 passes)?
- and in case you deleted the file already, so you can't 'secure delete it by wiping it' CCleaner can also wipe all free disk space on a partition.

This tool is priceless!

Thanks fastbullet, nice to see you too. :)

~~~~~~~~~~
Change is good, if you can change with it.
{Chinese Proverb}

A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.
~ Leo Buscaglia