How can you physically destroy a hard drive?

Yeah, Mangetout. Fl4merZ r0xx0r! Fl4merz p0wnZZ j00! Fl4merZ 3ng4g3 1nn d33-v33-4nt sh1zzn0tch w1t y0 m4t3rn4l pr0v1d3r!

D0nt’ h8 d4 fl4m3r, h8 d4 fl4m3!

Now for some beats I know ya hep cats are gonna groove on.

Overwriting data with more data isn’t fully secure: All magnetic media preserve `echoes’ of what was once written to them, so a determined enough cracker with sensitive equipment could read stuff off of partitions you’d overwritten with random data (no, the digits of pi aren’t good enough because they’re too well known and can be produced cheaply with a purely deterministic method (ie, a computer program)).

Even if you are willing to risk that, beware of virtual memory and journalling file systems. Both of those things use the drive for something other than simple, linear, long-term storage (if I understand journalling file systems correctly, which I might not). This means that your data could end up anywhere on the disk and be impossible to see with conventional methods. Taking a hex editor to a raw disk image isn’t the most amusing way to spend a Friday night, but you can be pretty sure you’ve erased the sensitive data (assuming you know what it looks like in hex and plain ASCII).

If your privacy is worth more to you than the price of the drive, burn the thing. Take a sledghammer to the remains. Take it to a shooting range and fire hollowpoint rounds at it from high-powered rifles. Put what’s left in a box and toss it in the East River at midnight to sleep with Jimmy Hoffa and JFK’s brain, preferably while wearing a pentacle and chanting the Requiem Mass backwards. In other words, be the kind of destructive maniac head crashes and bizarre memory errors have driven you to be. Be a hacker with a hacksaw.

I also vote for the Erase utility you can download from www.cnet.com.

If the drive is out of the computer, you can drill holes, soak it blah blah blah. You have to open the hard drive so you can see the platters and then hammer on the platters, hammer the platter, hammer the platter. Now tell me The Platter Hammers isn’t a good name for a rock band. Just kidding.

Next post…

Platter Hammers isnt’ a good name for a rock band.

Wasn’t there already a thread on this?
Here it is, it was sitting under a pile of broken hard drive platters.
Wait a minute, heres ANOTHER one. Man o man, doesn’t anyone ever fucking search before they post?
-Sandwriter

** Did you read the threads you just linked to? The first one asks about wiping the hard drive WITHOUT damaging it physically. The second one is asking how to format and reinstall his OS. Neither has anything to do with what this OP is asking.

Wow.

Did YOU read the posts?

The OP wants to destroy the hard drive so no one can get the data off of it.

In the first post it’s all about getting rid of the data.

In the second one micco talks about having to write ones and zero’s over the entire disc 300 times to ‘erase’ the data.

If you have a hard drive you might have a computer around the house such that you could physically, with software, remove all the data. It’s safer and less prone to injure a person than smashing things up with a hammer.

And possibly quite redundant.

I agree. Setting it in a fireplace or a bonfire for an hour will absolutely destroy it, IMO. But if that isn’t hot enough for a person, then get a MAPP gas torch from Sears for $40 (plus an extra oxygen cylinder for $8) and turn the drive into a puddle of aluminium.

Of course, you could always use a phased plasma rifle in the 40 Watt range.

(Is it okay with you if I post that, SandWriter?)

I think the DoD standard is writing over all sectors 7 times to fully “erase” the hard drive. However, it is feasible that someone could still get the data out of it. This is called computer forensics. Like mentioned above, when data is written, it leaves echoes or prints behind. So even if you overwrite the same area, you can still see the outline of the previous data on the magnetic disk. Rewriting numerous times tends to hide this outline, but you maybe able to still see it.

I guess if you really want to make sure, you could take it apart and throw the disks in a cremation oven or something.

>> Overwriting data with more data isn’t fully secure

A program which will do that several times is secure enough for the US government and it is secure enough for you except, maybe, if the NSA is after you. Do that and then destroy the drive physically and I can guarantee not even the NSA can get anything.

The individuals referenced in the OP authored the following (in pdf format):

“Remembrance of Data Passed: A Study of Disk Sanitization Practices”

Includes sanitization and forensic methods and tools. A link to the above appears in the Yahoo summary page of the story here.

Overwriting 7 times will hide the information well enough for all practical purposes. A sledgehammer will do the same thing. Probably not even the NSA could get the information and, if your concern is the NSA are after you, then this BBS ain’t the place to come for advice.

Very redundant. For a few reasons.

  1. I really, really needed to be sure NO-ONE could get ANYTHING off of that disk.
  2. I had no way to test how effective the sanding method was. I realized this after I finished sanding, and it worried me.
  3. Alright, the main reason was I wanted and excuse to play with thermite. Who could blame me?

You never need an excuse to play with thermite. (This message brought to you by the National Council for the Irresponsible Use of Powerful Chemicals.)

As the author of the OP, I would like to reiterate my desire to know how I can destroy a hard drive with items found around the house. I don’t want to bring it out to a wrecking yard magnet, or sub-contract for the use of a small nuclear weapon.

An overnight soak in a Drano solution was mentioned. What else might do it?

Heat and Impacts are two ways to demagnatize metal.

If you open up the hard drive and get access to the platters, you can hit them with a hammer and

a) scuff the surface which will not allow the read head to scan the platter
b) bend the platter so it can not spin evenly to allow a read head to scan the platter
c) demagnatize the surface with the impacts.

After you have done that, OR instead of doing that you can stick the platters in the oven at 500 for a couple of hours, or use the torch as previously suggested. The heat will demagnatize the surface

If you have a gas stove, you can put the platters on a burner. Once they start to smoke, they’re done. And that’s the platters smoking, not grease or the motor smoking. Better turn on the vent.

I don’t suggest leaving the platters on an electric stove as they may melt onto the element, but if you have a pan you don’t like, you can put the platters in the pan then heat the pan up.

If you have a pistol or rifle or shotgun you can blow holes in the platters, the impact will demagnatize the metal and scuff the surface, etc.

Didn’t some one already say drill holes in it with a power drill? Squink did. What’s wrong with that? The heat from the friction of drilling will help demagnatize the platters as well.

So there you go. Sandpaper is really cheap, ovens, hammers, drills, drano, where can you have more fun.

-Sandwriter

p.s. Desmostylus - Fuck Off Asshole
p.p.s. Don’t get excited! :slight_smile: It’s a quote from the same movie you quoted…

Sanding or grinding the platters will do it, 100%.

The correct quote is “Fuck you, asshole”.

**If all else fails. ** I have a son that can take things apart in a way that they can never be put back together. :frowning:

Oops, my bad,

FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE

Aren’t fertilizer and diesel fuel common household materials?