Disposing of HDDs

Mac
#1

G’day,

This is, I think, something I’ve NEVER had to ask before…

How do you get rid of your no longer required hard drives?

I have just picked up a “ALL IN 1 HDD Docking” - the swiss army knife of drive/card docks, and started going through the old drives I have laying around. My aim is to copy everything I need to my new larger drives, making these old ones obsolete.

But then - what do you do with the mechanisms…

I’ve read about destroying the data - drilling holes through the entire thing, and buggering the pins to make attempts to retrieve data unlikely… But then what? Toss them in the bin? Some of the drives have a trash can icon, with a line through it - IE do not toss in the bin…

I figure for a start, I can let my 9yo take one apart to retrieve the magnets… but that still leaves a lot of parts for scrap…

What’s everyone doing with their old drives?

Cheers

cosmic

#2

I use a live Linux CD and run a command line Shread command which overwrites the whole disk with random data. I suppose you could use a Live USB stick for those computers that don’t have a CD drive but I’ve never tried that.

After that I can give away the drive or ebay it if it’s worth it.

#3

I have 3 drives which were on the edge of dead, and have not yet decided what to do about them. A friend of mine swears by zeroing out, then a hammer and then off to the electronics dump.

#4

You can also put them in a bucket of water overnight, though this technique will probably not work with solid state drives.

#5

First drive that needs to go - “Ultra ATA” 80GB Seagate Barracuda… I’ve used Disk Utility to do 2 random writes, and 1 “known write” - which was that app’s 3rd best option for erasing data (next step was 7 writes…).

I guess I could look at eBay, but this particular drive had some bad sectors, and at only 80GB, I figure it’s probably not going to be terribly useful to anyone.

Will see if the kid is interested in dismantling… otherwise it’ll be hammer and bin time…

#6

Don’t sell it, thats just cruel, some poor bugger buying a drive thats going to die sooner rather than later. You wouldnt get much for it anyway. Most people are using 2TB or more these days.

#7

Destroy them. Even overwriting with multiple zeros won’t protect your data for the suitably paranoid.
Your data is more valuable than the price you could get for old HDDs.

#8

Hard drive platters are in a vaccum sealed section, a bucket of water will kill the electronics but the data on the platters will still be able to be accessed by a suitably determined person.

Take the drive apart and use a grinder on the platers to destory them, or take them to a place that has a proper driver shredder such as Payam Data Recovery

#9

Your local Officeworks should have a technology recycling drop-off service. Give them a go!

Source: Employee.

#10

If the drives are encrypted with FileVault they’re probably reasonably safe to dispose of at Officeworks etc after a reformat/overwrite without physically destroying them. It’s an interesting question though - what to large companies do with hard drives/old computers these days?

#11

I’ll just put this here. how I get my donor hard drives - YouTube but you’ll be surprised what people are willing to pay. About a year and a half ago I got $800 for a old Seagate Drive.

So if you’re not worried about the data that was stored on it been recovered, because you know you’ve taken care of that and satisfied. You maybe able to sell the drive even if it’s moderately functioning as a donor drive.

#12

So, people are paying around $12-$15 on eBay for my Seagate 80GB - though that’s without talk of bad sectors.

I think the magnets will be more fun than having $12. :slight_smile:

But I"m sure I’ve got a few more drives hidden away somewhere… So I’ll keep eBay in mind, once the data’s been wiped…

#13

I’d just rather go the hammer route if the drive cant be recovered to be useful again. I just am too lazy to do a full wipe, it takes ages, and then I am too lazy to bother with ebay or gumtree. Hammer and bin seems easiest.

#14

I’ve sold my old ones, but my really old ones I smash with a hammer, and then bin them.

#15

One level of zeroes no one with off the shelf data recovery will recover it, 3 levels of zeroes not even the NSA will recover it. Anything beyond that is just paranoia. After you’re done with it drive your car over it a couple times then put it in one of those recycling bins at office works.

#16

If you have any drives towards the larger end of a spectrum for a certain connection type, they can sometimes fetch a decent amount. E.g. Any 500gb + IDE/PATA drives. If it is one of the best parts possible for a certain application, you can usually get some good money for it. 80gb doesn’t fit into that obviously.

Multiple drive writes are definitely recommend. Then encrypt the drive if you’re wanting to sell it.
For drives you aren’t selling, either physically destroy them (drill, hammer, etc), or dismantle them and dispose of the parts in different locations/times. So anyone rubbish diving won’t have a complete drive.

#17

My place is by no means “large”, a few thousand desktops in service at any one time. For general desktop computers, it’s usually DBAN and then off for disposal. For the enterprise stuff, the OS disk gets a KillDisk (DBAN is too old to handle modern RAID controllers) and then sit around waiting for disposal. Disks that have the important data on them are physically destroyed, even failed ones, we pay extra to not have to return an intact failed unit. Off-site tapes get physically destroyed by the storage company.

1 Like
#18

. . . . or if you have a steam roller handy

image.png870×498 661 KB
. . . as was used on Terry Pratchett’s HDD :cry: