The broken one, however, is full to the brim with sensitive data. How do I render it beyond determined recovery?
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x--PvednesO-('-'Q) :
Well, my hard-drive recently died, and I now have a new one.The broken one, however, is full to the brim with sensitive data. How do I render it beyond determined recovery?
How sensitive are we talking here?
Most places will simply drill a hole through the casing and platters, and that renders it fairly non-recoverable by any normal means.
However, if you REALLY care about it, you CAN still take a hard drive destroyed in this manner to a data recovery lab and pay somewhere on the order of $11,000 USD to recover SOME of the data left on the undamaged portion of the platters. So if we're talking CIA/FBI/M16 top-fucking-secret and you don't have the machinery around to smelt metal, you may want to just hang on to the hard drive and tuck it under some floorboards or bury it in your back yard or something.
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Pvednesing:
By "sensitive" I mean "everything I've done on this computer for the last four years".
If you can't think of anybody who would spend multiple thousands of dollars for just the chance to retrieve a small part of the data on that drive, then I'd say you're fairly safe just using a power drill to make a neat little hole in the area outlined in red:
Aside from a clandestine visit to the steel-works, I mean.
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Over the mountain, in between the ups and downs, I ran into Pvednes who doth quote:
At present it's a one-stop-shop for anyone that wants to steal from me or otherwise do me harm, so I'll try that, though is there anything more thorough--if only to make me feel better about it?Aside from a clandestine visit to the steel-works, I mean.
That method is fairly fucking thorough.
If the drive still works well enough to boot off it you could do a destructive format and zero out the drive, but - guess what! - even THAT isn't 100% and a lab can sometimes still retrieve data.
Basically the only 100% method is to physically annihilate the platters.
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Pvednesing:
What are the platters made of?
Usually aluminum, sometimes ceramic.
VERY old drives have glass platters. Maradon! fucked around with this message on 07-21-2006 at 04:31 PM.
I also have a geologist's pick, and a sledge hammer. Pvednes fucked around with this message on 07-21-2006 at 04:35 PM.
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And I was all like 'Oh yeah?' and Pvednes was all like:
In that case, would a bit of sulphuric acid help? That I can manage.I also have a geologist's pick, and a sledge hammer.
The answer to "How do I dispose/destroy" anything is always break it open, smash it to bits, and then burn those bits.
Then take those burned bits, smash them again, and burn that.
It's not something people hear about.
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Pvednesing:
In that case, would a bit of sulphuric acid help? That I can manage.I also have a geologist's pick, and a sledge hammer.
I don't know if sulphuric acid will dissolve aluminum...
You can hammer or otherwise brutalize the platters if you like, but this method would probably be roughly as certain as simply drilling a hole through it. Maradon! fucked around with this message on 07-21-2006 at 04:40 PM.
Thanks! Pvednes fucked around with this message on 07-21-2006 at 04:47 PM.
If you've got the means to chemically castrate it, you'd damn well better do it. And video tape it for us.
It's not something people hear about.
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Nobody really understood why Maradon! wrote:
I don't know if sulphuric acid will dissolve aluminum...You can hammer or otherwise brutalize the platters if you like, but this method would probably be roughly as certain as simply drilling a hole through it.
I'm pretty positive they used Sulphuric Acid to kill a drive on TechTV. Think it was basically super fast corosion damage. But not positive.
Also used some high explosives that episode. Woo. Alaan fucked around with this message on 07-21-2006 at 04:51 PM.
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My buddy HEARNO:
Sodium Hydroxide AKA. Lye, AKA Drano(not liquid Drano) will aggressively attack aluminum not to mention your skin be careful.
Though the money isn't the real cost.
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Sean had this to say about Matthew Broderick:
The answer to "How do I dispose/destroy" anything is always break it open, smash it to bits, and then burn those bits.Then take those burned bits, smash them again, and burn that.
And if you want to have fun use M80's somewhere in this equation. Just watch out for shrapnel. 
That should wreck just about everything as well.
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From the book of Random Insanity Generator, chapter 3, verse 16:
Oh, if you have aluminum, iron oxide, a little sulfur and a little magnesium you can have some fun and thermite the drive.That should wreck just about everything as well.
dude...I had completely forgotten that one. I used to conspire to thermite just about everything after seeing a college prof show how relatively easy it is.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
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Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael attempted to be funny by writing:
dude...I had completely forgotten that one. I used to conspire to thermite just about everything after seeing a college prof show how relatively easy it is.
"When you need it to be a molten pile of slag, there's Thermite."
Boot from a Linux cd.
mount that Drive
Browse the data (read only mode)
simple.
Best to smash then seperate the remains, although why on earth anyone would want whatever you have there is beyond me.
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Maradon! had this to say about Cuba:
You haven't been paying real close attention to this thread, have you
Sure I have, I first mentioned how I could recover data off the drive to underscore why it would be a good idea to make sure the drive was destroyed. At the end of my post I gave my recomendation of destruction.
Also, Somthor can't read or write.
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Pvednes wrote, obviously thinking too hard:
I'm going to go with the thermite option, because I have magnesium strips and ferric oxide on standby, and aluminium powder is very easy to come by. Also, safer and more spectacular.Also, Somthor can't read or write.
If you do not film and distribute we WILL ban you from the Brotherhood. Remember this.
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Random Insanity Generator had this to say about Cuba:
If you do not film and distribute we WILL ban you from the Brotherhood. Remember this.
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Random Insanity Generator wrote this in the snow with their pee:
If you do not film and distribute we WILL ban you from the Brotherhood. Remember this.
*nods*
