All in all, for speed, cost, and ease, I would run them through the dishwasher. Then toss them in the trash counting on the odds that nobody will ever really find them.
Of course, the number one rule is don’t disclose that there’s anything important on your disks. The NSA monitors the internet for threads like this, and will now be going through your trash every day.
If the KGB doesn’t get them first, @Drum_God.
What if long proximity to the inner disc has somehow left an imprint on the molecules in the plastic? I think the OP needs to destroy everything that was within a two meter radius of where the floppies were stored.
I don’t really understand all these suggestions to drill a hole in the disk. A 5" floppy is a flexible plastic film in a paper sleeve; not an ideal medium to drill into. Even if one were to drill into it, that would damage a tiny part of the data. The majority of the data, perhaps even all of it, would still be accessible, since there’s a lot data redundancy, which is specifically designed to allow data to be accessible if isolated spots on the disk are damaged. The disk might even still be readable in an ordinary disk drive.
Maybe if you have some liquid nitrogen lying around, but putting a piece of paper in an ordinary freezer will certainly not cause it to “shatter” when you hit it.
A regular magnet isn’t very effective in erasing the data. A stronger, alternating magnetic field is much more effective…which is what a purpose-made bulk eraser does.
Many early and inexpensive tape recorders used a simple fixed magnet to erase the tape. It didn’t work very well. Later recorders and more expensive recorders used the bias signal to an electromagnet in the tape path. This work(s)ed quite well.
That’s exactly what I would do. Alternatively, I’ll bet a week in a salt water or muriatic acid solution would corrode the media into sediment.
I think if you shell 3.5" floppy discs, the actual magnetic media can be shredded. As I remember, you need to yank the metal slider thing off first.
If I were going for a chemical method, I wouldn’t use a polar solvent like saltwater or acid, since the platters are made of plastic. I’d go for a nonpolar solvent like acetone.
Hm, looking it up, it looks like the recording medium is generally made from mylar, which resists weak alkali, cold acids, and most organic solvents, but degrades in strong alkali, strong hot acid, or cresols.
Burning/melting is probably easier.
Who said it would?
Oh you’re funny.
I’d assumed the mylar is coated in some sort of corrosion-prone magnetic material but I guess it’s probably better protected than a simple surface coating. I used to destroy CDs by microwaving them for 15 seconds which seemed pretty effective.
If it were me in the real world, I’d put a staple in them or chop them with shears and put them in with the kitchen garbage. That is realistically good enough.
If my very existence depended on it, I’d thrown them in a camp fire and stay upwind.
Non-serious: I would put them somewhere vaguely accessible, while loudly proclaiming in front of my cats how important and vital they were, and step out of the room for a just a minute. Problem solved.
Half-serious: Wait until summer, then leave them on the dash of my car all afternoon. It’s what destroyed one of my disks back in college! (well, okay, it was on the seat, but the dash would be better!).
Serious: I would extract the physical disks as outlined above and cut them in quarters, then intermix. I can’t imagine anyone I know with secrets deep enough to try to extract info from them past that level.
Out of curiosity, I searched a few local data destruction companies, but they all want to talk to you about a quote, instead of just listing prices. Even the ones that say they can do one-off residential work, don’t list any prices. I’m not curios enough to call, but the OP should.
My trash company says they will shred a box of paper for $10. If the data destruction places will shred a box of floppies for $10-30, then I think that is the end of the discussion.
If a professional shredding place is much too expensive, then I think the 5.25 disks are very easy to destroy. Grab the center, pull, and get the magnetic media out. Stack a few of the media together and cut them up. Then get the strongest small magnet you can find, put the cut up media in a box with the magnet, and shake it up. Even a fridge magnet will mess up a floppy disk. If you can get a proper deguasing magnet, all the better.
The 3.5 disks are bit more difficult to deconstruct because of the hard plastic shell. On some the glue will have given up, and you can pop off the metal sleeve, and then the halves will easily come apart. Others will defy all attempts at destruction. If you can find a quick way to get the media out, then proceed the same as with the 5.25 media.
What tools are available, do you have a hydraulic press, a wood chipper?
I’m not so sure about that. If it were really important confidential data, would you trust that unknown humans at a small company that you were paying a few dollars were destroying it?
They give you a certificate that it will be destroyed!
Some of them will let you hang out as their truck chops up the stuff.
I’m just going to keep thinking up objections to any strategy that doesn’t involve buying my own hydraulic press.
Real world scenario, I’d just put them in a bag and personally hand them to the local garbage men when they come around, or else if I’m feeling ambitious take them myself to the dump and toss them in the garbage hopper. Unless they contain extremely valuable information and the person to which its valuable know you have it and are trailing you, no one is going to root around in a dump* looking for left over floppies.
I’d say just leave the in the trash as is, but there is a remote chance that someone might root around in it looking for old credit card statements to use for identity theft and be curious as to whats on them.
*I’m assuming that you live in a first world country and not one where poor people make their living searching through trash.