I have. It is not easy. You would not believe how hard it was to do just this much damage to them.
Have you ever tried to physically destroy a hard drive?
Published by Shawn E. Tuma
Shawn Tuma is an attorney who is internationally recognized in cybersecurity, computer fraud and data privacy law, areas in which he has practiced for nearly two decades. He is a Partner at Spencer Fane, LLP where he regularly serves as outside cybersecurity and privacy counsel to a wide range of companies from small to midsized businesses to Fortune 100 enterprises. You can reach Shawn by telephone at 972.324.0317 or email him at stuma@spencerfane.com. View more posts
And just WHAT did that poor hard drive ever do to you? 😉
You don’t need to physically destroy them. I used to have a neat gimmick bought from Radio Shack. It was designed to guarantee total randomization of the particles on a VHS tape – most “auto-erase” features on VCRs and fast-rewinders only scrambled the signal, leaving a lot of data behind. If I needed to do so today? Probably take the hard drive out to my car and set it on the alternator for a few minutes. Enough EM coming out of that to shred your data pretty well, I imagine.
And always remember, a fireplace doesn’t just provide a good sale point for a house. It’s also a great way to TRULY destroy paperwork. And I bet I could cook that hard drive to medium-well in only a few minutes…. 😀
I mainly did it for the challenge and stress relief – but I like the alternator idea!