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#1
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Destroying Hard Drives
I have several hard drives to destroy/completely erase. They are already
removed from the computer cases. Dismantling them one by one and sanding the disks is messy and time consuming. Extreme heat comes to mind as an approach. Anyone with any experience putting them on the barbeque set to highest? If so, how long does it take? And are there any noxious fumes expelled? ----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups ----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---- |
#2
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Alan Jeffs wrote:
I have several hard drives to destroy/completely erase. They are already removed from the computer cases. Dismantling them one by one and sanding the disks is messy and time consuming. Extreme heat comes to mind as an approach. Anyone with any experience putting them on the barbeque set to highest? If so, how long does it take? And are there any noxious fumes expelled? ----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups ----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---- Most recent hard drives have glass platters. Simply opening the case and whacking the platter(s) with a hammer is an effective data destruction technique. The older sort had aluminum platters and these are quite easily mangled enough that nobody will ever get data from them. I wouldn't bother trying to barbecue a drive -- save your cooking for a nice marinated salmon steak. -- John McGaw [Knoxville, TN, USA] http://johnmcgaw.com |
#3
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"Alan Jeffs" writes:
I have several hard drives to destroy/completely erase. They are already removed from the computer cases. Dismantling them one by one and sanding the disks is messy and time consuming. Extreme heat comes to mind as an approach. Anyone with any experience putting them on the barbeque set to highest? If so, how long does it take? And are there any noxious fumes expelled? Are you sure that you've correctly identified the required level of protection against data recovery? Certain types of classified data require physical media destruction, but if that were the case here the organization would have been required to have the destruction process spelled out in detail long ago. What type of attacker do you believe that you need to thwart? If it's someone with NSA-level resources available to recover data, and the attacker might have a reason to enlist NSA-level support, total physical destruction is appropriate. OTOH, if that's not the case then it might be sufficient to disassemble the platter stack (thus getting the platters out of alignment with each other) and inflicting a deep radial score on each recording surface. The key idea is to make the cost of recovering the data higher than the value of the data. You could take the platters to your local shooting range and use them for target practice. (There *are* facilities in a few places that will supply a machine gun; you bring any (legal) target material and have at it. At least for a while a popular target was used PCs.) Joe Morris |
#4
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On 24-Sep-2005, "Alan Jeffs" wrote: Subject: Destroying Hard Drives From: "Alan Jeffs" Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 15:43:19 -0400 Message-ID: Lines: 8 Path: news.demon.co.uk!mutlu.news.demon.net!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!demon!144.21 2.248.119.MISMATCH!newsfeed-00.mathworks.com!news-out.newsfeeds.com!spool6-east.superfeed.net!spool6-east.superfeed.net!not-for-mail Newsgroups: alt.comp.hardware X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2180 X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Original X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2180 X-Report: Please report illegal or inappropriate use to . Forward a copy of ALL headers INCLUDING the body. (DO NOT SEND ATTACHMENTS) X-Comments2: IMPORTANT: Newsfeeds.com does not condone,support,nor tolerate spam or any illegal or copyrighted postings. X-Comments: This message was posted through Newsfeeds.com Xref: news.demon.co.uk alt.comp.hardwa108499 I have several hard drives to destroy/completely erase. They are already removed from the computer cases. Dismantling them one by one and sanding the disks is messy and time consuming. Extreme heat comes to mind as an approach. Anyone with any experience putting them on the barbeque set to highest? If so, how long does it take? And are there any noxious fumes expelled? No need for fire, sanding or heat for that matter. Just take the drives and place them on a concrete floor. Then get a heavy hammer, a 2 pound ball pein hammer is ideal for this job, and then proceed to beat the hell out of the drives!. A couple of good blows with the ball end should be more than enough to break a glass platter, and when you pick the drive up again you will hear the broken glass rattling around inside. |
#5
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On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 15:43:19 -0400, "Alan Jeffs"
wrote: I have several hard drives to destroy/completely erase. They are already removed from the computer cases. Dismantling them one by one and sanding the disks is messy and time consuming. Extreme heat comes to mind as an approach. Anyone with any experience putting them on the barbeque set to highest? If so, how long does it take? And are there any noxious fumes expelled? Take a large hammer and give each a very hard wack through the top of the casing with the claw end. This is of course, after you have put the drives back into systems, and used one of the myriad drive erasers that does mutli-pass random data writes to the entire surface, which makes the whole process of completely destroying the drive later, pointless... but hey, you asked. Before you believe some random urban myth about it being possible to recover data after multi-pass random writes, find even one example of it ever having happened. There is no logical reason why people destroy discs... it's just paranoia or ignorance of how to properly erase them. |
#6
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"Alan Jeffs" wrote in message
... I have several hard drives to destroy/completely erase. They are already removed from the computer cases. Dismantling them one by one and sanding the disks is messy and time consuming. Extreme heat comes to mind as an approach. Anyone with any experience putting them on the barbeque set to highest? If so, how long does it take? And are there any noxious fumes expelled? ----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups ----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---- Hello Alan, How about trying a 10 or 20 pound Sledge Hammer . . . . or maybe a shotgun with several Deer Slugs ? ? ? ? ? Just a violent thought....! Starz_Kid... |
#7
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"kony" wrote:
Before you believe some random urban myth about it being possible to recover data after multi-pass random writes, find even one example of it ever having happened. You're leaving out "national technical means". I've read (it's even on the web) that there are ways to analyze the low levels of residual magnetization left even after several over-writes, and that there are ways to read the magnetic slop-over between tracks that get left when a drive arm has become worn. When national security is at stake, the boys with the technical means that are beyond "the state of the art" take over. Of course, that is only to say that one need merely to make data retrieval more expensive than it's worth in one's effort to destroy it. *TimDaniels* |
#8
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Timothy Daniels wrote: "kony" wrote: Before you believe some random urban myth about it being possible to recover data after multi-pass random writes, find even one example of it ever having happened. You're leaving out "national technical means". I've read (it's even on the web) that there are ways to analyze the low levels of residual magnetization left even after several over-writes, and that there are ways to read the magnetic slop-over between tracks that get left when a drive arm has become worn. You need to reread the parent post. Everyone has heard of these random rumors that some sort of residual magnetization is left over after multiple random rewrites, or whatever other random technobabble you want to throw at us. But despite all of this talk, it's never been shown to even be possible, let alone done. Hence kony's challenge: "find even one example of it ever having happened". You can't! |
#9
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If this recovering of lost data were true, then a single
erasure of Richard Nixon's Watergate tape easily and long since would have been recovered. That also because a single bit error does not destroy the recorded analog signal. There exists this very remote possibility that some data might be recovered. And that also assumes one knows which disk to spend $millions on trying to recover that data. Use the sledge hammer. Deposit in some third party dumpster. If they can find and recover that data, then they deserved it. Timothy Daniels wrote: You're leaving out "national technical means". I've read (it's even on the web) that there are ways to analyze the low levels of residual magnetization left even after several over-writes, and that there are ways to read the magnetic slop-over between tracks that get left when a drive arm has become worn. When national security is at stake, the boys with the technical means that are beyond "the state of the art" take over. Of course, that is only to say that one need merely to make data retrieval more expensive than it's worth in one's effort to destroy it. *TimDaniels* |
#10
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I can tell you exactly what the data was on ANY hard disk platter that has been
broken, burned, shattered, hammered, shot, erased in ANY manner - even melted drives disks. It's rather simple. I have several hard drives to destroy/completely erase. |
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