

Ask HN: Easiest way to ensure a HD is not readable? - watmough

Hi, I have quite a few old hard-drives from 80 MB upwards, that I'd like to throw away. The first three to throw away have been soaking in a bucket of salty water for the last 72 hours. Is this a reasonable way to ensure they are not readable?
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grecy
If you're serious about this, you need to destroy the platters as much as
possible. I'd smash the drives open with a sledgehammer (faster than taking
the screws out) then smash the platters into as many tiny pieces as possible.
For good measure, you could then throw the pieces into a bucket with some nice
strong magnets.

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nudge
Drive metal stakes right through them. I don't know if this will make it
impossible to recover data, but it'd be difficult.

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mthomas
Seconded. Alternatively you can just take a power drill and drill a hole
straight through the case into all the platters.

