How to Say Goodbye to Old Hard Drives? 337
An anonymous reader writes "I'm wondering if anyone else out there has a stack of old hard drives sitting around and doesn't know what to do with them. I always remove the hard drives of my parents' and friends' computers before they recycle them or get a new computer, so now I've got a whole bunch sitting around. One, I'd like to dispose of them and know that whatever data was there is gone, but before that, I'd like to hook them up, one by one, and scan them to make sure there's nothing vital there worth saving. Some are years old and may be totally dead for all I know, but is there a good system for hooking up a hard drive as an additional device, perhaps via USB? And what's a pretty good way to ensure that someone else won't pull them out later on and find usable data?" Well to start with you could always use your hard drives to make electricity or create a decorative wind chime. There are also many different options to ensure that your data doesn't fall into the hands of the enemy. What other suggestions can folks come up with?
Re:Do it the old fashioned way - shoot em! (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, the hard part is doing something productive with them. They're really not good for much, except for marveling how cool magnetism is. Eddy currents are a good crowd pleaser.. made a pendulum type device with a led wired up to a coil, as it swung past a magnet the led would flicker.
Also, this:
http://xzzy.org/files/geek/eddy/eddy.avi [xzzy.org]
Know a guy who would make such projects and donate them to schools as educational toys.. schools are always glad for stuff like that.
Turbine (Score:2, Interesting)
-Benjamin Vander Jagt
hard drive art! (Score:3, Interesting)
http://polynomial.org/disc_wall2.jpg [polynomial.org]
New and Modern - GRIND EM (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Do it the old fashioned way - shoot em! (Score:5, Interesting)
I take the magnets out and use the best ones on our refrigerator. I give the rest to friends for that purpose.
Before doing this I connect them to a drive dock, specifically this one:
http://www.wiebetech.com/products/ComboDock.php [wiebetech.com]
I look at any files worth keeping and copy these to another modern HD. Since HD space is cheap these days, I have several complete DOS drive images on file. After that I let the computer do a multi-pass full data scramble erasure. This can take quite a while on big drives.
After the magnets are extracted, the left over pieces go to a metal recycler. The cases are usually made from many beer cans worth of aluminum.
Re:Do it the old fashioned way - shoot em! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:far too dangerous for kids (Score:3, Interesting)
All done.
Horizontal Saw (Score:3, Interesting)
I sawed directly through the middle of the platter, cutting through the motor. It made a very neat cutaway study. Might make some art with it, dunno. It was also fun to watch.
Erm, this is one way!... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQYPCPB1g3o [youtube.com]
Re:Easy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Do it the old fashioned way - shoot em! (Score:4, Interesting)
They also work wonderfully on those annoying "inventory control" dye-pack tags that clerks all too frequently seem to "forget" to remove from your new shirt. Just stick the magnet at the end, you'll hear or feel a subtle click, and the metal pin will pop right out (it should do so easily - If you feel resistance, you don't have it right and will make a mess if you pull too hard).
You can also use them to deactivate the strips in books and CDs that trigger door alarms (but NOT the RFID ones, which look like a 1.5x1.5" sticker with a slightly thicker center and spiral around the outer edge).
But remember what the signs always say, these devices exist "for your protection". Not just for laughs from having some minimum-wage-slave frisk you at the door while everyone looks at you like a thief because another minimum-wage-slave couldn't bother to do their job and pass your purchase over the magic pad-o'-deactivation.
Re:Easy... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup, that's right, folks, overwriting all the data on a hard drive just *once* puts it beyond the reach of anyone without extremely specialised equipment. For most modernish (made in the last 10 years) drives, then this will utterly destroy any previous data that gets overwritten.
No, the NSA do not have some magic machine that can read hard disks no matter how many times they've been over-written. You watch too much CSI.
No, there isn't a special secret command that manufacturers put in that show you what a sector used to hold before it was overwritten.
There's no guarantee that you'll hit every possible sector - some drives have metadata on tracks not normally accessible by the end user, and there are always mapped-out bad blocks that might still have old data on them. But seriously, no-one cares about your data enough to spend a fortune with a data recovery firm just to get your bookmarks and mp3s.
Just formatting the drive won't do it. YOu *do* need to hit every sector. It takes a while, and the electric drill method is quicker. It does leave you with a ruined drive, though, when it might otherwise have been useful.
If you don't believe that a single pass will clobber the data, try me. I'll give you an overwritten drive, and if you can tell me what was on it previously I'll give you a car.