Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it will mess up the power flow. Misbehaving powesupplies destroy HDDs.
So a magnet held 6 inches away from the PC did more damage than the one inside the HDD literally inside the PC?
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Can I erase sensitive data on an old hard drive with Neodymium Magnets?
51–60 of 132 posts
Re: Can I erase sensitive data on an old hard drive with Neodymium Magnets?
#52even if you drill a hole in the drive, data can still be recovered from it. anything that leaves large pieces of drive intact really isnt ideal. over the years i had collected dozens of platters from both myself and other people. for some reason, when i was younger i was obsessed with collecting hard drive magnets and also smart enough to understand that i probably shouldnt throw the platters away. so a few years ago i decided it was time to destroy all of these annoying platters that i have to worry about misplacing. i naturally assumed that it was going to be easy to find some kind of service, shredding or wiping, for hard drives or hard drive platters. there were no good options. so i tried smashing the platters into small pieces, and this worked for some of the thinner laptop hdd platters. one strong hit would break them into millions of tiny pieces. but most of them just bent or dented. and to thoroughly bend and dent the whole surface of all the platters would be super annoying. so i decided i should just melt them -- they are made of aluminum which has a low melting point. it was surprisingly easy. just get an old coffee can or better yet a stainless steel gas cylinder or even a ceramic crucible. they arent too expensive as far as i know. i used a can. then just surround the can with some bricks for insulation and apply a normal blow torch. set the torch down so it blows into the void between your vessel and the brick jacket. after the platters are melted you can even cast them into something, like a belt buckle. its all a bit silly, but it does feel nice to know that it is literally impossible for anyone to ever know what was on those platters.
Re: Can I erase sensitive data on an old hard drive with Neodymium Magnets?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
So a magnet held 6 inches away from the PC did more damage than the one inside the HDD literally inside the PC?
Yeah, I hope people realise that everybody has these magnets IN their computer. You might have a NAS in which case you have several of these magnets much closer than 6 inches to the other drives and power supply and nothing happens. Magnets near your or even on the computer do nothing.
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Re: Can I erase sensitive data on an old hard drive with Neodymium Magnets?
#54A friend uses a saws-all (or something of that ilk) and cuts them in half. I'm figuring on taking my old drives to him for that treatment. I don't want to resell them and have a casual snooper recover my data, and I'm not of enough interest for anyone to piece the halves together.
What's the risk from simply writing over the drives with zeros, and sticking them in the electronics recycling? I don't think anything I or my employer has would be worth the effort to recover.
Right? What are the people in this thread doing that they're worried someone would take the time to employ theoretical, if not entirely hypothetical, recovery methods against a zeroed disk?
Re: Can I erase sensitive data on an old hard drive with Neodymium Magnets?
#55Here's my anecdote: In 2006, while sitting at my desk playing a video on the hard disk drive of my Thinkpad T22, I held a single neodymium magnet (harvested from an old hard disk drive) about 6 inches from the left side of the unit (where the ~40GB-ish Travelstar 2.5" PATA disk was located). The video froze, Windows XP blue-screened, and the hard disk drive started emitting a ~10Khz whine. I jerked my hand away from…
Out of curiosity, what was the brand and model of that HDD? Would like to dive deeper into its construction, etc.
Re: Can I erase sensitive data on an old hard drive with Neodymium Magnets?
#56Thermite, both fun _and_ effective.
My old Yubikey was in between layers of explosives here: https://youtu.be/XYOZEPr3Jzw
Re: Can I erase sensitive data on an old hard drive with Neodymium Magnets?
#57For quickly destroying hard drives, drive big nails through the entire case in several places. Restoration is at least very manual and annoying, in many cases not worth the effort. If you need more security, building a simple furnace isn't too hard: http://eecue.com/c/driveslag
You don't need to go that fancy. Just use a small steel drum, with holes punched around the bottom, sitting on bricks. Burn dry hardwood, plus occasional chunks of paraffin. Everything burns off, except for the steel.
Re: Can I erase sensitive data on an old hard drive with Neodymium Magnets?
#58HDD's are shielded with mu-metal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu-metal
Re: Can I erase sensitive data on an old hard drive with Neodymium Magnets?
#59No. You need to cast it into the fires of Mordor. Or something similar.
What I've done is not that dissimilar. It's pretty easy to build a furnace out of basic household items. With charcoal and a leafblower, you can get it up to a temperature where an entire HDD will melt or burn.