Most Effective Method of Wiping a Hard Drive

[Gerowen]

Editing the video now, here's photo of what was left after I was done wiping my hard drive today.

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

I took a hammer to an old DVR yesterday.

It was brilliant. I broke a piece off the hammer though.

Shooting the drive would be much more fun though.. :D

[argonite]

I can still see some Bits!

[srbeen]

To wipe a HDD one must continually write nothing to it...

[Gerowen]

As promised, here's the video demonstrating my method of wiping a hard drive of any residual data when it refuses to co-operate with my computer.

Video:

[xpablo]

Yeah not good enough, There's probably some files the NSA can extract, from those platters.

[seta-san]

get a flower pot with a hole in them middle and fill it with two parts powered iron oxide(rust) to one part powered aluminum. get a wick and light it from afar and protect your eyes from the searing bright light.

[Gerowen]

Yeah not good enough, There's probably some files the NSA can extract, from those platters.

There's nothing THAT sensitive on there. Anything on that drive the NSA probably already has copies of anyway, I just didn't want some shifty criminal to dig it out of the trash, call up Western Digital and pay a few dollars to have all my personal files recovered and sent to him, :-P

[Hum]

I wipe my drive with a paper towel :p

[The Evil Overlord]

I wipe my drive with a paper towel :p

DAMMIT That was my line :p

[Dot Matrix]

Yeah not good enough, There's probably some files the NSA can extract, from those platters.

Once the control board is dead, that's it, there's nothing no one can do with that.

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

Once the control board is dead, that's it, there's nothing no one can do with that.

There's equipment that can directly read the magnetic patterns directly off the platters to restore the data.

[DJGM]

Unless it was faulty, that was a thoroughly reckless act of wasteful stupidity on a perfectly good 1TB WD hard drive.

A good secure wipe would've been enough to prevent any miscreant from performing dodgy data recovery on it.

Once the control board is dead, that's it, there's nothing no one can do with that.

Except replace the dead control board with fully functional identical control board.

[Chris Rollason]

Boot and nuke to wipe the data forever, then feel free to destroy it in any way you see fit!

[Detection]

Once the control board is dead, that's it, there's nothing no one can do with that.

Yea... because the control board is where the data is saved ? :/

[Dot Matrix]

Except replace the dead control board with fully functional identical control board.

Easier said than done.

There's equipment that can directly read the magnetic patterns directly off the platters to restore the data.

Is there? I've been told over and over again, that this is the work of fantasy TV by many of my professors.

Yea... because the control board is where the data is saved ? :/

Huh? When did I say that? The control board controls the hard drive, and the various motors. Unless you have the EXACT control board for that exact hard drive, you'll never power that hard drive again.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Why did you cover the brand name up? From the looks of it, it's a Western Digital.

[Detection]

Huh? When did I say that? The control board controls the hard drive, and the various motors. Unless you have the EXACT control board for that exact hard drive, you'll never power that hard drive again.

Quote yourself:

Once the control board is dead, that's it, there's nothing no one can do with that.

Except there is something someone can do with that, they can replace the board.

There is loads of things people could do to recover data is the board is dead, you think the FBI say "Aww the boards dead, well I guess this guy got away with it"

You think data recovery companies tell their customers "Sorry, although the platters are fine, the board is dead, you just lost everything"

Backtracking will not make you any less wrong

And more to the point, what makes you think replacing the board with an identical model would be difficult? You have to do that with a lot of different components, what happens when an inverter in a laptop screen dies? Ebay the exact part number and buy another one

[ShareShiz]

LIKE A BOSS

[AJerman]

Easier said than done.

Is there? I've been told over and over again, that this is the work of fantasy TV by many of my professors.

Huh? When did I say that? The control board controls the hard drive, and the various motors. Unless you have the EXACT control board for that exact hard drive, you'll never power that hard drive again.

That's so far wrong I don't know why anyone would have told you that. You can even transplant the platters into a new drive if the drive dies without any special magic (other than a clean room).

[ShareShiz]

good luck transfering those platters.

in other news. I use a grinder when I no longer need a HDD :D

[n_K]

Is there? I've been told over and over again, that this is the work of fantasy TV by many of my professors.

Yes, there is. When I sent my failed western digital drive to a recovery company, they tried replacing the platters but it didn't fix the problem so the drive was returned to me, they did also say they could read the data off the platters themselves at a cost of something like ?1,000/hour, now obviously my data wasn't worth that much and I don't have that amount of money lying around, but to secure a prosecution or to save highly sensitive data to a business it probably is worth it.

Also I feel like this is possibly the most retarded thread I've seen in a while.

[AJerman]

Yes, there is. When I sent my failed western digital drive to a recovery company, they tried replacing the platters but it didn't fix the problem so the drive was returned to me, they did also say they could read the data off the platters themselves at a cost of something like ?1,000/hour, now obviously my data wasn't worth that much and I don't have that amount of money lying around, but to secure a prosecution or to save highly sensitive data to a business it probably is worth it.

Also I feel like this is possibly the most retarded thread I've seen in a while.

Follow me to the Windows 8 section...

[Chasethebase Veteran]

This came to mind.