Harddrive destruction observations

[rkr1958]

I had three bad harddrives that died over the past 4 years collecting dust in my closet. An IBM 45-GB deskstar PATA, Maxtor 60-GB PATA and Seagate 160-GB SATA. I decided to finally throw them out today. To prevent the remote chance that someone might get tax or banking information I decided to drill hole in them to destroy / damage the harddrive platters and electronics.

The Seagate and Maxtor were difficult to drill into. Even when I did, the hd platter remained intact. I drilled probably 7 or 8 holes and rotated the platters to keep damaging them. I also drilled out and / or damage the controller board and its electronics. I probably spent 15 to 20 minutes per drive. Still the hd platters, though heavily damage, stayed together. It was very difficult to drill through the metal top cover ... I mainly drilled from the underside and angled the drill to try to do as much damage as possilbe. I also broke two drill bits on these drives.

The last drive I drilled was the IBM deskstar. It took 10-seconds and little effort to drill completely through. Also, the hd platter on the first drill through completely shattered.

While all three drivers went belly up at different times and on different machines, the Seagate and Maxtor seemed physically better constructed than the IBM deskstar.

[Soopafresh]

Hand Drill or Electric ?

[rkr1958]

Hand Drill or Electric ?

Electric and several wacks with a hammer. My 6yr son helped me. I made him wear saftey glasses.

[holistic]

.....................Now mark them urgent & fragile and send them through the mail.
The postal service will take care rest for you. :P

[Xylob the Destroyer]

wouldn't a fairly large hammer be a lot quicker and easier?

BTW, nice avatar -- I want a miniature dachshund SO bad...

[Enygma]

I used to own one of the IBM Deathstar drives... made some horrible clicking noises one day and I salvaged what data I could.

Luckily it was still under warranty so I sent it to IBM. They sent me back a different drive, not sure if it was new or refurbished. I then sold that drive on ebay.

Might have been easier to disassemble the drives and scratched the hell out of the platters.

[rkr1958]

@holistic - I thought I'd give the sanitation folks the first shot.

@Xylob the Destoryer
- Our dog's name is Chole'. She'll be 12 this summer and is one of the family. They do like to bark and they can be moody but they're very affectionate dogs.
- A sledge hammer would've proably done the trick ... however, my 6yr old son really wanted me to get the drill out and help. I let him do some drilling with me helping and my foot on the drive to keep the bit from gapping and throwing it. Mostly, he just hammered on them. We even drove nails through the holes we drilled.

Enygma - Drilling and hammering the drives was so much more fun than disassembling them. Even though I did break two of my drill bits. I also learned based on my sample of one that IBM drivers are much less sturdy than Seagate and Maxtor.