On Wednesday 11 July 2007 11:12, Jim Kuzdrall wrote: > What is the most efficient way to destroy the data on a hard > drive before junking it?
This was more of a survey question than one connected to one specific application, so a full definition of the criteria was not included. To focus more tightly, now that I have some idea of the alternatives, the specific problem is one 80GB IDE from my business computer that is gave ever increasing read errors. Since I have to pay for the destruction, I would like it to be inexpensive. And, it is summertime and tedious mechanical projects are less appealing than enjoying the weather. If someone else were paying, the shredding sounds good. The problem with shredding may be due to the high density of magnetic recording. How much contiguous track is needed to record a 4KB file? Drilling is a good cheap alternative, and most likely effective enough for my present purposes. The problem with magnetic erasure is that I have no facility to confirm that it was actually successful. My wife suggested a magnetic erasure that might be more economical than the shredding truck. She suggested renting the MRI machine at the hospital. Even at a single layer, it would hold quite a few 3.5-inch drives, making the cost each low. (Much of the MRI cost comes from creating the report and a doctor reading the results.) So far I like the idea of melting the drive best. Perhaps someone could put a drive on the charcoal grill at the gnhlug BBQ. Is it hot enough? A picture of the platters (hard disk, not potato salad) after might be interesting. Jim Kuzdrall _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/