OT: Hard Drive wipe

[OaklandGB]

Not wanting to hijack a similar thread about old lap tops, thought I'd pose this question to the experts.

I was curious if anyone has used old strong speaker magnets to wipe a hard drive before disposal. Just to prevent any latent data from being read somewhere down the line.

[old mart]

I don't think you would be able to get a strong enough flux with any magnet to be sure of wiping a HDD. If you were recycling the drive, you have a problem, but if the drive is destroyed, then there is not much to worry about. I like to take them to bits and salvage the discs, assuming they are aluminium, not glass.

[SLK001]

I don't use speaker magnets, but hammer magnets. One swipe with a hammer magnet and your old data is gone forever!

[OaklandGB]

Hey maybe you are on to something!! Sounds like a perfect excuse...er...reason to buy a hydraulic press for the garage shop....hmmmm....

[boslab]

Just burn the thing, they melt nicely btw, now recover somthing from that!
we had a history of burning stuff in the steel plant, guns, drugs porn etc, the funniest was bales of “ lawn clippings” about 5 tons were put in the scrap skip (armed police everywhere) into the converter it went, I’m suspicious about the next bit, the ID fan “tripped out” odd, the smoke didn’t go up the stack, it want everywhere, the stuff burned your eyes, the charger crane driver got the munchies and the armed police were laughing like school kids, never did that again
mark

[MikeWI]

I discovered that I had accumulated a dozen old drives over the years, and tossed them in the burn pile. Nothing but a pool of slag was left.

[Doozer]

I knew a guy who pushed his pickup truck into the open hearth at Bethlehem Steel.
Also just a pool of slag was left.

-D

[macona]

External magnets just don't have the flux needed to wipe a drive and when you do that the drive may be useless after. If you are trying to wipe it and keep it for other things there are various utilities that will overwrite the drive. Generally a 1x overwrite is good enough but 3x makes sure no one will ever get anything off it. Of course it will take longer the larger the drive is. I did a triple wipe on a 6TB drive and it took hours.

[Bob La Londe]

Not wanting to hijack a similar thread about old lap tops, thought I'd pose this question to the experts.

I was curious if anyone has used old strong speaker magnets to wipe a hard drive before disposal. Just to prevent any latent data from being read somewhere down the line.

Back in the day of the old MFM hard drives a buddy of mines girlfriend who worked at radio shack erased a hard drive with a VHS bulky eraser. We disassembled that drive and that magnet was so strong it magnetized the heads and they stuck to the platters. Those were good days. We took over the store one day and had scattered parts of computers everywhere as we were trying to isolate and decompile the Michelangelo virus. it must have been hysterical for customers walking by seeing three nerds sitting on the floor with scattered computer parts all around them.

Nowadays I decommission drives with a blacksmith Hammer with a narrow Fuller. I want to make sure the platters are broken in small pieces. a hatchet or an ax might also be a good option if you don't care too much about the edge or your decent at regrinding it. Some tiny bits of data might be recoverable, but it's going to take a whole different level of operation than the average Asian or Indonesian recycling plant has.

Guys who are really serious about it run them through a drive shredder that physically tears the drives apart.

[Michael Edwards]

This could be an interesting HSM project, build a shredder.

[thin-woodsman]

Awhile back, I helped the sysadmin decommission a bunch of server hard drives prior to an office move.

Take a ball-pein out to the parking lot, put a hard drive on one of those concrete parking burms, then give it a few solid whacks until you hear the plates shatter. Takes about 3-5 blows, independent of hard drive manufacturer or wielder of hammer.

[barracudajoe]

I dismantle the drive, wipe the disc with a 60 lb magnet, drill holes in it, scratch the disc with a scribe and finally give a couple of good whacks with a hammer. You know, take my pandemic frustrations out on it!

[jcfx]

You guys know that there are neodymium magnets near the head arm pivot, right ?

They're damn strong , half a C shape in the ones I've dismantled. Worth salvaging.
Once you've got it apart the individual platters make a nice over size key fob or make a
wind chime out of them.

Wonder if a demagnetizer would have a strong enough flux to wipe the HD discs ?

[Noitoen]

This could be an interesting HSM project, build a shredder.

We do that at work to 500 fridges every day 😀

[rjs44032]

+1 on what macona said. There are utilities that write 0s to all areas of the drive. This essentially wipes out all residual data.

Then if you're still nervous, destruction fun!

Best Regards,
Bob