Hard Drive Secure Erase

[madmattd]

A coworker was prepping an old computer at work to be recycled and wanted to ensure destruction of the data on the old hard drive. Mind you this was an ancient computer, definitely a PATA drive at best, possibly old late-90s SCSI. His method is detailed below. Enjoy.

[Stephen]

i still see some porn

[TheKeef]

i still see some porn

Furry.

[madmattd]

My favorite was not the sawzall through the thing but the several wood screws he ran into it...

[Mullet]

The magnets are badass. save them.

[madmattd]

The magnets are badass. save them.

Indeed they are. I just shake my head when people freak out about putting refrigerator magnets near a laptop or desktop. Those weak magnets can't do anything against those uber rare-earth magnets in the HDDs...but we didn't keep them. We have too much crap at work as it is...and a lot of uber-magnets.

[ATG Aaron]

I have 20 or so harddrive magnets that i use as fridge magnet ... plus most people walk in and have no clue where they came from

[Mullet]

cool story bro.

[Light Of Darkness]

Now I have the temptation to rip apart an old harddrive for uber magnets
THANKS GUYS GUESS YOU WON'T SEE ME ON WHILE I GET A NEW HARDDRIVE

[IM A COMPUTAH]

Most of that data is still recoverable to those who have the money and the means necessary to get to it. If you really want to make sure your hard drive is unrecoverable, run the Secure Erase command: https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase
I don't think you can use it on that hard drive you showed, but for almost every single ATA and now SSD drives it is a hidden feature. I then take them apart, run the earth magnets over the disks surface, and throw out the platters in different locations.

I love collecting the earth magnets, I have about 5 sets so far. I hate the hard drives where they press fit the magnets and you can't remove them

Here is an awesome video on Youtube on how mechanical hard drives work:
EDIT I can't figure out how to get youtube videos working again so here is the link:

[madmattd]

Well yes a decent bit of the data may be recoverable, but it was a SCSI drive and beat up enough to stop all but the stupidly determined. The feeling was that if someone was determined enough to piece together the broken platters and reconstruct the data through the cracks and holes put in the platters, then go for it. The data on there isn't THAT important, lol.