Destroying hard drive - without opening it

[Lysander]

I need to get rid of my old hard drive and the data on it as well. However, I don't have one of those special screwdriver thingies which has 'six points' on it which seems necessary to open it so I could mess with the platters and get rid of the data.

So what's the best way to destroy as much of the data as possible without opening the drive? Low-level format? Unconditional format? Immersing the drive in water?

 

[Will_3rd]

Picked this up from a thread the other day

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

 

[chameleon]

Pickaxe comes to mind!

 

[roughlad]

get an old psu and plug the molex in the wrong way round and boom goes ** hd.
Or you caould just spend a fiver on torque screw driver bits(thats *** the weird screws are)

 

[icyshore]

You could chuck it in the fire, the heat is bound to damage the platters.

 

[ajm]

Or put it in a bucket of water, but not while connected

 

[squiffy]

Put a "Maxtor" sticker on it, it'll fail within 2 days.

 

[Dureth]

water and fire wont do it, I remember PC Format did a test a couple of years back on this. Even after socked in petrol for hours and being set on fire the data could be recovered. It really depends how badly you need to rid the drive of the data. Enough that a casual person cant get it? Or enough that a data recovery specialist company cant get it?

 

[hardc0re_tid]

.
http://www.kwtool.com/catalog/images/HACKSAW.jpg

 

[Lysander]

water and fire wont do it, I remember PC Format did a test a couple of years back on this. Even after socked in petrol for hours and being set on fire the data could be recovered. It really depends how badly you need to rid the drive of the data. Enough that a casual person cant get it? Or enough that a data recovery specialist company cant get it?

Enough that no-one at all can get to it! I was thinking of doing an unconditional format [or two] but I don't know if that will be enough.

 

[squiffy]

What data do you have on it? A good few writes is enough to put anyone off, and would someone try for hours just to get a few savegames?

Unless you have illegal porn or terrorist documents?

 

[hardc0re_tid]

are we back to the indestructable p0rn again?

 

[Lolcb]

Did something illegal.

 

[JonnyGLC]

Children.

 

[Lysander]

Stop winding me up Looks like the best way would be to do an unconditional format, short of turning the drive into powder.

 

[kutmasta]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzrXWggrjDU


Get one of those blenders

 

[Dureth]

In all seriousness a format wont wipe buggery all to anyone with a decent clue on how to find it. The only absolute way that no-one can get the data is to open the drive up and smash each platter into as many bits as you can.

 

[hardc0re_tid]

You should take the top off the drive and then cover it with some tight cling film. Then start it up and bend the disc/head thingy with a magnet and watch it destroy the disc

 

[FrostedNipple]

www.willitblend.com

 

[semi-pro waster]

A DBAN wipe done to either American DoD standards or around 9 times ought to be enough to make sure no one will be able to read any left over data, if whoever you are hiding data from has the ability to retrieve data after that many wipes then you are in bigger trouble than I can help you with. Other than that I'd recommend a sledgehammer and/or a proper incinerator but I'd suggest both are rather overkill.