What's the best way to dispose of a Hard Disk Drive (HDD)?

What's the best way to dispose of a Hard Disk Drive (HDD)?

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infosecisland.com/blogview/16130-The-Urban-Legend-of-Multipass-Hard-Disk-Overwrite.html
cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html
youtube.com/watch?v=-bpX8YvNg6Y
nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-88r1.pdf
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

Grind it up and eat it

Just throw it away.

Format it
Plug into a new pc
Put something useless on it
Toss it (or bury it after damaging it if you're paranoid).

apply an oxyacetylene torch to the platters (Thank you, Orlock) for two minutes, then take it to Geek Squad and ask them to fix it.

Drill a hole straight though it making sure you also drill though the platters
guaranteed 100% unrecoverable and unreadable

Dban
Sell

If it's broken just throw it out.

FIRE

microwave it

Just asking geek squad to fix might be enough to do the trick on its own.

Not even joking.

Done it before.

do
and then

Degauss is sufficient.

Or combine two separate methods:

Perforated
Shredded

I'm asking because I found my old HDD in the closet. It's from my teen years. It has my poetry, essays, and the three novellas I wrote.
It has to go.

...

Is writing 0's enough to make data unrecoverable from a hard drive?

No, not even close. The old bits remain recoverable with sophisticated equipment. You need to write random data several times.

>dban
does dban hdparm?

for all practical purposes something like:
shred -n1 -z /dev/sdx
finish with hdparm --security-erase-enhanced

you can argue more or less but this is "enough"

Use it for target practice

>myth
infosecisland.com/blogview/16130-The-Urban-Legend-of-Multipass-Hard-Disk-Overwrite.html

seriously even guttman says this is a joke
cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html

if you don't want to read that skip to "Epilogue"

Drill a hole in it and throw it at a recycling bin.

Depends on how unrecoverable we're talking. Writing 0s is enough to make it unrecoverable to any and all software solutions, and data recovery companies either won't have the equipment necessary for it or will charge upwards of 10 grand for that kind of recovery.
To put it simply, for anyone to even think about bothering to recover a drive that has been zeroed out like that, you're looking at either industrial espionage or some serious criminal investigation.

Is your data that important to anyone, user ?

if you're posting this question here and you don't have a TLA knocking then yes.

if you're worried do a single pass of random data then zero and you'll be more than fine.

You don't even need a hammer, or even a rock. Just your bare hands and a hard flat surface should do it. Repeatedly pick it up and throw it down until you've smashed the platters. Put the pieces in two or three different bags. No one will be able to recover anything.

Take out the magnets and smash the rest with a hammer

This seems quite effective.

No, because as soon as they realize that the pattern was all zeros they can guess if the previous values were 1 or 0 based on whether if the analog readings are on the higher side or the lower side. It needs to be random, not zeros.

You didn't understand the question.

consider the use case here

even ontrack won't give you back anything on a zero'd disk. can you cite a single case of a recovered modern(ish) disk from zero? I'll settle for an intact 1mb file from a zero'd disk.

or cite a proof of concept of this sophisticated equipment that can do enough bits to restore entire files

I say this because the original tinfoil hat who said it's theoretically possible has said it's also highly impractical and improbable. Or am I still not understanding?

I do a single random pass to err on the side of caution for work but I don't believe it necessary for consumer use.

Shoot it with a mosin nagant

Just mail it to me.

Sledgehammer is a viable method.

>pic related

Run zeros through it for 24+hrs and then shred the pcb and smash the platters. Dispose in multiple scattered trash bins and smelt the casing into a knife so that feds can't take you alive for questioning if they ever recover the data.

Thermite, leave that bitch melted to the point that only God himself will know what atoms were in what part beforehand, let alone the digital state.

Thermonuclear hellfire

Somewhat related if you want to use thermite
youtube.com/watch?v=-bpX8YvNg6Y

Take platters out and use as stylish coasters

I hope they were wearing goggles, that looks very dangerous to me

underrated

>Shoot it with a mosin nagant
TFW Eurofag ;_;

I dban and shoot them.

If you want it gone out of existence set it on fire. If you just don't need it anymore and probably wanna give it to someone else, dban it twice, three if you're paranoid.

Post your stuff here.

oddly satisfying

This.

Just use shred and call it a day.

Will this put me on a CIA watchlist if I use it?

mostly. the main problem is there will be a lot of bad sectors on the drive that can't be accessed since the drive firmware itself remaps them.

i would think 1 pass of random and then a secure erase (which hopefully gets those bad sectors) is enough for normal cases other than multi million dollar organised crime shit, but then if thats your bag you wouldn't need to ask us.

...

open
save the magnets cuz they're cool
use the platters as coasters

All of those little pieces are still readable though. I suggest filling the hard drive with random shit a few times, format it and then smash it is the way to go.

I found a HDD from my early teens. Apart form all that, there was a shitload of what is now CP. That drive got disassembled and its platters sanded on a bench sander.

Just beat the fuck out of it with a hammer a few times and be done with it. Who the fuck is going to sifting through your garbage, let alone collect every little shard of platter and actually retrieve info from it. Even if they did it would just be worthless hentai and loli shit.

This I don't get why there are people here who are so self obsessed to think that anyone cares about what shit they have on hard drive they are gonna throw away.

run pdwipe, throw in trash

i once heard that throwing a HDD to fire with a few neodumiums does the trick. the heating magnets go through all magnetic frequencies and fucks up any kind of data
never tested it though

Write all 0's on drive then physically destroy platters with an angle grinder.

Nice try NSA :)

How can something become CP?

Darik's Boot and Nuke

Recycle however you want.

No.
Disk scrubbing utilities are commonly used (and usually required through policy) in business.

If you beat it with a hammer:
1. The NSA and other entities can still gain access to all of the data.
2. You cannot resell it because your dumb ass just destroyed it.

Software like Dban is more than enough to shred data. But even if you'll hammer it, you should use Dban before that.

don't browse cp
don't work from home if you have a job dealing with sensitive info
and/or be a neet watching regular porn, anime and gaymin all day and simply throw it on the common trash bin when it breaks.

youtube.com/watch?v=-bpX8YvNg6Y

sand the platters

Break the platters and distribute pieces in multiple garbage cans. Unless they're following you, you're good.

Drill a couple of holes through the casing. Find the nearest salt-water ocean. Rent a boat. Sail out for about a mile from shore. Drop HDD over board. Allow salt water to corrode your drive into oblivion. Good luck ever finding that drive again.

But user what if someone fishes up a big fish and finds your dirve in its stomach?

Pneumatic drill into smithereens
Thermite debris
Throw ash down volcano
Nuke Earth from orbit

Just wipe over it a few times using dban or cleaner. If you're real paranoid write random data over the whole thing. Even more paranoid open it and destroy everything inside. Use magnets, hammers, screwdrivers, knives, fire etc.

I don't know why you'd bother with a program when you can drill straight through the platters after running a powerful magnet on it.

Does running a big magnet across it work?

shove it up your ass faggt

I usually melt mine down in my forge.

Probably nudes and whatnot he might have shared/recieved as a teen and didn't realize was illegal at the time

Fucking normie detected. Magnets only work on floppies and tapes.

Hey genius, do you see that metal block just to the left of the read/write head in OP's pic?

That's a pair of powerful magnets that are always in the case with the platter. A handheld magnet from the outside doesn't do shit unless it's powerful enough to physically pull the read head into the platter and scratch it. You will not demagnetize the platter and your data will still be accessible even if the drive is "broken".

It still would have been CP back then.

That's what I'm trying to say. He didn't know it was then, but he does now.

You're a special kind of autistic

What kind of crime does it count as if an underage is in possession of CP? I imagine the parents would get in trouble even if you can somehow prove they had absolutely no idea their son had CP in his computer

Also hi CIA, just asking out of curiosity

I would suggest smashing the disk into many small pieces then smashing them into a thin powder. Then separate the powder in to 3 plastic baggies. Take one to the nearest stream and disperse the pieces in the stream. Next go to a remote location and dig around 10-20 holes sprinkling a little of the powder in each one. Flush a small portion of the last baggy down the toilet and then take the last portion and make it into a line. Then snort it up with straw and sneeze into the air.

Put it in a rocket and fly it into the Sun.

I remember reading a news story (Canuckistan) where a teen was charged with possession of CP for sharing nudes. I guess the laws vary by country.

I don't have the money for a rocket.

drive to the woods and bury it, or throw it into the sea

Build your own fag.

I'm not the other guy.

I mostly agree with you. In my mind, one pass is fine as long as it's not a nation state or a conglomerate with tons of money going after you. If I was super paranoid, which I'm not, I would still do 3 passes, write random data, and then phsyically destroy it.

I do a 29 pass on it then rub magnets over it in a clockwise pattern, finally rub my dick on it then smash it and grind it into dust and bury it in a forest near my house

I forgot to add, i split it into quarters then bury it in the four corners of the forest near my house

Your image tells me you've done this before.

It is the technique used by Hillary Clinton's IT guys to disappear the hard drives in her basement servers.

Take it apart, put it in a bucket halfway filled with gasoline, light it on fire.

Open your door, from your porch throw it as far as you can onto pavement.

actually they used bleach bit.

Important note: The US National Security Council no longer considers DoD 5220.22-M(ECE) sufficient to wipe classified data from an HDD. The only methods now approved by the NSC for wiping data from an HDD is degaussing or physical destruction. However, storage media that is no longer needed but contained classified information is put into a grinder that turns the device into a powder.

There is no simple solution to disposing a HDD if you are concerned for your privacy. I'd read this pdf to get a better understanding of the scope of the problem that now includes SSDs and such - nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/SpecialPublications/NIST.SP.800-88r1.pdf

Or, if you had nothing on that drive of any concern, put it in with your trash and let it go to the landfill.

Why did the hub stop spinning? Were the wires/motors damaged, or does it automatically detect damage to the disks and stop turning on its own?

Like with a cloth or something?

adjust the system clock