Secure disk destruction [was Re: Floppy recovery]

[Charles Anthony]

On Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 6:20 PM, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 7 Jan 2016, drlegendre . wrote:
>
>> What's wrong with the "disassemble and rend with heavy hammer" approach?
>> Doesn't that render the platters un-readable, if done with sufficient
>> ardor?
>>
>
> Bending the platters will keep them from turning and being usable in the
> drive, but does NOT prevent various other imaging methods.
>
> Breaking a platter in half doesn't prevent those techniques.
>
> Shattering a glass platter into dozens of pieces doesn't prevent those
> techniques.
>
> breaking it into tiny bits may or may not depending on how much effort
> somebody is willing to put into identifying where each piece came from in
> the platter.
>
> High heat should work.
>
> Sanding all of the rust off of the platter should work.
>
> Mailing the drive to a government office, with a note saying, "please help
> me recover the pictures of my grandmother's birthday party", and having it
> lost in their mailroom might work.
>
>
>
Putting it a crate with a few hundred other drives...

-- Charles