"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
On 16/04/2021 08:54, SH wrote:

Yup all that, then repurpose the discs as coasters, having roughed up
the surface a bit / given them a wipe over with a neodymium magnet.


That won't fly with SWMBO, she will not recognise them as coasters and
would throw them in the bin.



Skip all the above dissassembly steps, place drive on concrete floor,
hit robustly with 14lb sledge several times. That is enough to bend the
entire drive, platters and all, so it can't be spun up or read by any
conventional method. (Yes there is a fair chance that GCHQ or the NSA
might be able to get something back off them, but they are not the folks
I am trying to keep out!)

The Hard drive is based on arather substantial frame (most likely to be
aluminium. I'd rather direct the destructive energy onto the individual
platters otherwise, you can;t gaurantee the destructive energy *is*
getting through to the platters if you're hitting the entire drive.....

Plus some drives have multiple platters......

All you need to do is bend the thing, there is no way back from bent
platters without serious expenditure.

Makes a lot more sense to use full drive encryption of the
data you care about if you are as paranoid as that fool is.

Most use laptops not desktops now and
virtually all laptops do full drive encryption.