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I have a sweet deal set up where I get lots of hard drives. I had been told drilling through them was the only way to guarantee that the data was destroyed.
We just can't do it anymore. We have ruined so many bits and then someone recommended an $80 diamond tip bit and we destroyed that as well.
Is there anyone else out there who has to be HIPAA compliant and can share how they are disabling them without a shredder?
thanks
A heavy duty degausser would work. They are expensive but maybe a used one could be found.
I have heard of people taking a pic and a hammer, and hammering the pick through them.
They are also machines that will drill a hole easily enough through them.
Many different options, but I do agree that finding one that is less stress on your body is always good.
You don't have to drill through them. Get yourself a cobalt bit, turn the drive upside down (so the circuit board is on top of the drive). Now drill through the circuit board an inch or so offset from the centre of the drive. Once you hit the plate at the other side of the drive you can stop. More often than not this will be stainless steel, which is why your bits will be wearing out.
You are now drilling through aluminium, rather than stainless steel. Using a pillar drill will help too. Put as many holes in the thing as you feel comfortable with.
Bit of a waste though.
Why aren't you completely breaking them down? I believe there are threads here that show pictures of the breakdown to HD boards, aluminum cases, copper windings, and then shred (scrap magnets and the platters).
I break them down all the way. Sets of torx bits are about $5 each on ebay. I destroy the platters by shearing them into 4 pieces each with a metal shear ($70)... A photo of the results are kept for proof of destruction. I then recycle as clean AL, shred, and circuit boards.... I charge companies $4.50 / drive for this service. Drilling will make these drives not work, but they still can be read if the hacker is resourceful enough. Cutting the platters into 4 and mixing them in with hundreds of other peaces make me feel confident that there won't be a data breach.
Here's a small pic of my messy work area again... in it you can see my shear and my screwdriver hanging above the bench.
http://www.use.com/images/s_2/6ce40e...56591bb8_1.jpg
Here's a sample of my proof of destruction form. I take all the photos and create a pdf for the company the work is being done for and submit this pdf for payment. In the actual document you can zoom in very close and can read the serial numbers of the drives off of it... they match the serial numbers with the serial numbers they gave me.
http://www.use.com/ba2cd9987673f6491080
If you drill use HSS (high speed steel) bits. Learn how to re-sharpen them. You can buy a cheap drill bit sharpener at Harbor Freight. All you need to do is scratch the platters. I break all drives down. The magnets are great!!
Copycat
Buy one of these they work great for crushing hard drives. You can even split some wood!
U can find them for between 200-350. Go higher in price. You do get what you pay for.
http://www.homedepot.com/catalog/pro...1e5230_400.jpg
http://www.homedepot.com/buy/outdoor...ter-73677.html
THanks for the great info....Obviously I am new. What are you doing with the magnets?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Neodymium-Ha...item2c654e64b7Quote:
Originally Posted by beimer
I scratch the platters with a box cutter. Make all sorts of scores all around them so nothing can be read. The ones that are unreadable I then sell on ebay aswell. However reading this im thinking I will start cutting them in pieces. You can also fold them over several times and make them unreadable. When you bend them the crackling you hear is the coating breaking up.
a fun way i take care of them is remove the top cover so the platter is exposed and plug a bunch of them into an old power supply on my bench and let them spin up to speed then take your pocket knife or screwdriver and drag it along the face of the platter as its spinning,
just an idea if your tearing them apart anyway, it definitely ruins the platter.
Well, that would take care of the top of the first platter, but what about the bottom and the other platters? Also, watch out for glass platters, try that and you could have glass shards everywhere. I have only found 1 glass platter so far, but they do shatter.
I swear people its been said before. Take a hammer to the motor and bend it down and in. And just like that that hdd will be done
Hammer the drive will effectively bend the platters and make the drive un-readable. If your clients are happy with this solution, then it's very time effective... Also, as long as your recycling buyer buys them like this... as, dirty aluminum maybe? Or just shred? I don't know. Taking them apart to separate out the parts after bending them would be a pain...
My clients ask for more and that's what I give them. You have to find out what will be acceptable and go from there.
wonder how the platters do againt a torch or plasma cutter lol.
The platters should melt with just a propane torch. I was using a turkey cooker powered with propane to heat up Al/Cu heat sinks to separate the copper out and some of the Al melted as well. Mike.
If you want to do a Degausser...Look up "Bulk Eraser" on Ebay. I bought a Heavy Duty one for around $20 and it'll wipe it Clean. It doesn't look like much, but try to reformat it...Not going to happen!
A small hydraulic press also works good, it will bend/or break the drive in half, also bending or shattering the platters inside. Fairly quick, quiet, no mess, no disassembly needed.
What happens of you microwave them?
Works for CD's.......
You will have a microwave to scrap in very short order. LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by eesakiwi
That's a film sprayed over the alum platter, you know what happens when you put metal in a microwave??Quote:
Originally Posted by eesakiwi
Smoke and fire,,, Rumor has it that is a platinum layer sprayed on them, have heard yes and no on that deal but have not found the proof one way or the other. Here is one explanation;Quote:
It's taken me just about forever, but I've finally found some way to answer the simple question "How much platinum is in these hard drive platters showing up on Ebay for salvage?" "The Chemistry of Computing" over at extremetech.com (article2/0,2845,1946290,00.asp) has all the facts: surface layer of Co-Cr-Pt alloy is 40-50% platinum, and the layer is ~30 nm thick. I don't have a hard drive platter in front of me, so let's just forget about the hole in the middle for a moment, so one platter from a 3.5" disk is 3.14*(3.5/2)^2=10.4 sq inches or 67.2 cm^2 ... times the 30 nm thickness (3x10^-6 cm) is 2.0x10-4 cm^3, times the (optimistic) 50% Pd, times the density of Pt (21.45 g/cm^3) and I estimate one platter has at most 2.2 mg Pt. As of 08/29/2008, the platinum spot price was 1470.00 USD per troy ounce, or more usefully, 4.73 cents per miligram. So, congratulations, you've just spent an hour of time and three cents of chemicals (just a guess, probably high) to reclaim 10 cents of platinum, probably still contaminated with cobalt and chromium depending on your recovery method. I hope you bought a whole bunch of platters cheap and rode a bike to pick them up because I doubt you'll be paying for gas let alone the shipping with the platinum. Or hope those early hard drives used a much thicker layer....
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_p...#ixzz1vZkPwrmj
I thought about how to scrap the hard drives last night.
Can you drill a hole into the side of the case thru the ali & into the side of the discs, that should also rip up the disc making it useless.
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A while ago I got a harddrive disc & scratched across it & put that into a container with HCL acid.
It ate all of the Ali inside the disc & left a suprisenly thick coating that the acid didn't affect.
I have used HCL acid to eat up chrome/nickel heater elements before so I don't expect the outer layer to contain chrome or nickel. I don't have the weight or thickness at the moment.
..or you can do this, and its funner!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0x6gkZmqcc
We only use our hole puncher every so often. We are Department of Defense certified to destroy data on Hard Drives, you have to set it back to 0's.
I would write them to zero. Kill disk hard drive eraser is a good one. Either set up a 2nd computer or add the hardrives to your existing one. You can buy a harddrive enclosure for all the different types of HD. That makes is much easier. It will still take a little time. But alot less mess. Good luck
The outer layer of the disc, after the HCL acid had eaten out the inner aluminum layer weighed 1.4 gramms.
What did that leave you with? Mike.Quote:
Originally Posted by eesakiwi
Simple solution...take a hammer to those mothers
I drill them with half inch bit after removeing board and my yard buys them as clean al with screws an mags still in them .....I AM BLESSED to have a great yard like mine to sell to...they also sell me drives and anythig with a board ( sat box ,computer,cable boxes for 0.25 per pound) i have even loaded my truck took computers apart thew back in shred pile and just paid for boards only..