Ignoramus21144 wrote:
On 2011-05-28, Joseph wrote:
In ,
wrote:

On 2011-05-27, Joseph wrote:
In articlestydnXDVoa8dvUDQnZ2dnUVZ_qydnZ2d@giganews. com,
wrote:

I have a little industrial demagnetizer from a grinding shop. Can this
thing erase contents of hard drives securely? Or the magnetic field is
not string enough? I have a pile of old HDs awaiting destruction.

THe alternative is my press, which is more of a PITA.

Not likely strong enough.

My standard approach is pounding the disk into a shapeless blob using a
five-pound hammer and an anvil. I put the drive in a freezer bag (heavy
polyethylene) first so the parts don't fly everywhere.

You cannot do that with a 5 lb sledge. The hard drive will not break.

Really? It works well enough for my purposes. Maybe NSA could get data
off the result, but nobody else can. I use a drilling hammer and big
boulder.

But you are free to use any size hammer you can swing.


Joe, a while ago, I tried pounding hard drives with a 8 lb sledge on
concrete.

While I am sure that the first blow will render is inoperable, I was
very surprised to find that the drive remained physically
intact. After perhaps 20 blows, the hard drive has been seriously
scratched up, but still essentially intact.


You need a bigger hammer.

John