[iamubiquitous]

Yah, the easiest thing I guess is a sledge, but as long as you're not an arch-criminal, I would not worry. To be honest, I check out drives that are throw-aways, just out of curiousity(sic.), you would not believe the things I've wiped so I could re-use the drive on a give-away machines. -Cheers!

[hewee]

Originally Posted by JohnWill

Remember, we're talking about what's possible, not what's likely. The only sure way is to totally destroy the platters.

You got that right.

Computer disk drives from WTC could yield clues

Whatever happened to the WTC HARD-DRIVE recoveries?
Plus Billions worth of Gold was taken that same day from the WTC.

These guys were good using the laser scanner that was something new and I guess those in the WTC did not know about so though the inside trading would be losted with the data.
But even with all this our Government is hiding things if the FBI is not doing anything.

German firm probes final World Trade Center deals

X-File: World Trade Center - Die Datenretter

[Adam_tarver]

First remove the hard drive from the computer. then load a Smith And Wesson Model 39 9 mm Pistol with 9 rounds. thats a full plus one in the chamber. then empty the mad into the hard drive. Repeat as many times as you like until the desired results are met or until the biggest piece is about the size of a dime. Bet the "Geek Squad" would never tell you the proper way to destroy the hard drive as i have just given you. this is all the steps to destroy one that you need. but, you can have fun with them. you may want to take your friends "rogue" hard drives and try out some diffrent methods. but this one works from experience. have fun rambo.

[JohnWill]

Originally Posted by iamubiquitous

Actually, if you drill through the disc media, which is composed of a highly sensitive magnetic alloy machined to the significantly tight specs. necessary to meet the standard, the only way to recover data would be through the prohibitively costly method of carefully filling the holes so the the heads will not catch on the edges(And forget about not corrupting the data in process.). You may think you could read the data on the untouched portion of the disc, but the heads read the entire disc at spin-up to verify the surface and mbr, etc.

You assume facts not in evidence here. When you're talking about a data recovery outfit, their equipment is manually controlled and doesn't automatically seek the entire disk.

I think you're losing sight of what's "practical" and what's "possible" I agree that after drilling a hole it's probably not practical for anyone with out significant resources to recover any data, but it sure is possible.

[FalkoTM]

sink it in the water

[JohnWill]

Water will not damage the platters, which could be removed, cleaned, and easily read. This is not a solution.

[hewee]

Model 22 HDD Hard Drive Disintegrator

Disintegration

Shredding

Degaussing

DIGITAL DATA DESTRUCTION

Annual Hard Drive Maintenance :P

[JohnWill]

I don't think many people are going to have access to that kind of equipment. Since it's quite possible to render them unreadable with an 8# hammer, it's also not required.

[hewee]