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Clifton

Suggestions on how to physically destroy hard drive, never to be used again
by best hacker? Sledge hammer? It looks pretty rugged..
 
Suggestions on how to physically destroy hard drive, never to be used again
by best hacker? Sledge hammer? It looks pretty rugged..
Click to expand...

M1 Garand. Mosin-Nagant 7.62X54R. k98 8mm. .45 auto

There are all sorts of ways... :-)

But yeah, a sledgehammer will do the trick. You could take it apart
first and see what the inside looks like... :-)
 
I find that a sturdy round point shovel does the trick quite nicely. It's
good to get that piercing action.
 
Clifton said:
Suggestions on how to physically destroy hard drive, never to be used again
by best hacker? Sledge hammer? It looks pretty rugged..
Click to expand...
I like plastic explosives myself, but then again I actually have access to
them. :-)

-Chris
 
Chris Stolworthy said:
I like plastic explosives myself, but then again I actually have access to
them. :-)

-Chris
Click to expand...
Thermite works as well or better, is easily made from commonly available
ingredients, and is quiet so that its use doesn't attract attention.
Typically the self-destruct mechanism for equipment racks in high-security
military installations consists of a thermite package at the top of the rack
which will reduce all the equipment in the rack to a molten mass when
triggered.

But modern hard drives don't really require a lot of destroying since the
platters are typically made of glass and any sort of serious impact will
accomplish just what you'd expect. Even older aluminum platters are easily
banged beyond hopes of data recovery.
 
Suggestions on how to physically destroy hard drive, never to be used again
by best hacker? Sledge hammer? It looks pretty rugged..
Click to expand...

The metal housing is pretty tough, but the platters where the data is
stored aren't. Once you get past that metal shell, they're pretty
fragile.
 
Clifton said:
Suggestions on how to physically destroy hard drive, never to be used again
by best hacker? Sledge hammer? It looks pretty rugged..
Click to expand...
I believe that the police use a pointed tool in a fly press to punch a
big indentation in the hard drive (i.e. through the hard drive case into
the disk itself) of a dodgy PC they want destroyed.
But a sledge hammer would do fine.
Regards Mike.
 
John McGaw said:
Thermite works as well or better, is easily made from commonly available
ingredients, and is quiet so that its use doesn't attract attention.
Typically the self-destruct mechanism for equipment racks in high-security
military installations consists of a thermite package at the top of the rack
which will reduce all the equipment in the rack to a molten mass when
triggered.

But modern hard drives don't really require a lot of destroying since the
platters are typically made of glass and any sort of serious impact will
accomplish just what you'd expect. Even older aluminum platters are easily
banged beyond hopes of data recovery.
Click to expand...
Could use a thermic lance, if one of those will get through concrete,
it'll certainly get through a hard drive :-o)
Regards Mike.
 
John said:
M1 Garand. Mosin-Nagant 7.62X54R. k98 8mm. .45 auto

There are all sorts of ways... :-)

But yeah, a sledgehammer will do the trick. You could take it apart
first and see what the inside looks like... :-)
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I do, (although I *do* have time on my hands) I pull 'em
apart (torx screwdriver sets are handy) and have a play with 'em. As we saw
from the thread about re-aligning platters, it's hard to get data off a HDD
that's been pulled apart. Also the data-storage layer on the platters
themselves is quite delicate and can easilly be scraped off, or the platters
bent/broken. Then there's those *really* powerful little magnets you can
play with. (Hint: Don't keep 'em anywhere near your floppy discs, I found
that out the hard way, chucked a floppy on my desk without remembering there
was a HDD magnet there under a couple of layers of paper). A mate of mine
maintains that they can pull the iron out of blood. I know I can run one
over the top of my desk and it 'jumps' to where the screws are located
underneath, through a good half-inch of real wood.

More time-consuming than a sledgehammer but more educational. It depends on
what you prefer. Also, if you know someone that way inclined, the platters
make excellent wind-chimes, especially if you have a mix of different ones.
I actually bought a box of sub-1GB HDDs at auction for pennies and spent the
day pulling them to bits. Maybe I should have tried to get the data off them
first? I read an article in a magazine recently about doing just that with
second-hand HDDs, using a free or trial (I think) basic forensic data
recovery app. Bit voyeuristic for my bent though.
 
I always use a 10 lb. sledge hammer with great results when I retire a
harddrive. The harddrives are not that strong.
 
Sledge hammer, definetly. Or go to a truck stop and have someone run
over it. That'll do the trick. If you're a hunter they make for some
good targets. lol
 
On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 16:30:52 GMT, Bob Horvath wrote:

One night on our local news they had an article about computers that
were gotten from the state surplus that still had data on them. Of
course the gist of the story was what to do with "your" old hard
drive, and the answer was to use a big heavy drill and drill a few
large holes through it. Sounded like a good way.
 
John said:
Thermite works as well or better, is easily made from commonly
available ingredients, and is quiet so that its use doesn't
attract attention. Typically the self-destruct mechanism for
equipment racks in high-security military installations
consists of a thermite package at the top of the rack which will
reduce all the equipment in the rack to a molten mass when
triggered.

But modern hard drives don't really require a lot of destroying
since the platters are typically made of glass and any sort of
serious impact will accomplish just what you'd expect. Even
older aluminum platters are easily banged beyond hopes of data
recovery.
Click to expand...

Just use a bigger hammer. That fixes anything.
 
A mate of mine maintains
that [strong magnets] can pull the iron out of blood. I know I can run
one over the top of my desk and it 'jumps' to where the screws are
located underneath, through a good half-inch of real wood.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter what the intervening material is so long as it's not
ferromagnetic. Wood, plastic, air, vacuum, whatever ... the effect of
the electromagnetism is the same.
 
Lots of good ideas. I did it with a crowbar curved end and a fairly heavy
hammer. It looks done to me.
 
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