21 Sep
2018
21 Sep
'18
9:42 a.m.
On Fri, Sep 21, 2018 at 6:51 AM, systems_glitch via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Burning of potassium permanganate to manganese
greensand will often get it
going. You are on your own for figuring out how to do that.
Multiple sources, including Robert on this list, tell me just to use
magnesium ribbon. I just looked it up; it's inexpensive and should be very
easy to use.
Thermite is not the ultimate destructive force some
people seem to think it
is. If you're trying to totally liquefy the platters you'll probably need
to remove them from the drives and put them in something capable of
containing the thermite for at least a little while (e.g. graphite
crucible). The usual, "put it in a flower pot" will likely either result in
a mess or a smallish hole through the platter, which really isn't any
better than running a drill through it.
All the more reason to experiment with it!
Elsewhere it's been suggested that somewhere between 0.25 and 0.5 kg of
thermite ought to do the job without needing to disassemble the drive
first. I've got sixteen drives to experiment with.