Hammer Time!
Posted on 02/26/2009 9:00:20 PM PST by Paleo Conservative
Last Friday morning when I got to the office, I found that my computer had the infamous Microsoft Blue Screen of Death. I tried rebooting, but the SCSI card got no response from my boot drive. This wasn't a huge problem, because I had already intended to upgrade my system drive and already had my data partitions copied to the new drive. After a little work I was able to restore a recent enough backup of my system drive to my new system drive and get the computer runing again.
My problem now is how do I destroy the data that still exists on the hard drive platters so they can't be read and recovered by anyone else even someone with access to a clean room who could fix the drive well enough to read any data that still exists on them. I've considered using my bulk eraser to erase the data that still exists and then using an electric drill to put holes in the platters.
And???
Sounds intriguing!
Backhoe and 5 acres.
Works for the libs I capture, should work for top secret stuff on a hard drive. ;>)
I was thinking the same thing as I wrote post. Ha! He is a genius sneaking those in at the top of the hour.
Just remember, don’t cross the streams.
-PJ
I always miss the “And” part...you know, while I am in the shower
Physically destroy the drive. A sledge applied repeatedly can do a fine job, as can a 12 ga. filled with buckshot (but don’t stand too close!). You have to damage the platters inside to make them completely unrecoverable.
I imagine a cutting torch or plasma cutter would be kind of interesting to try on it too!
The only way to truly make the drive unreadable is to destroy it.
There are numerous ways to do this. Anything from Hydrochloric Acid to Thermite to Magnetic Degaussing. Other ways would be to drill holes numerous thru it(but data can still be read from the non-drilled areas). Or use a hacksaw. Or a grinder with a 60 grit sanding disk. Or put it on a lathe. Or melt it.
:)
I have had fabulous results with this software over the years.
It gets rated in the top 10 in my circles.
Hammer Time!
This might be a stupid question. I mean no insult.
Have you tried using the file transfer wizard to get the files back off the hard drive?
You didn’t just try to get the files with explorer did you?
Ummm..., take a sledge hammer and pound it into pieces, especially the platter for the hard drive...
Once you get it into pieces, then dispose of the pieces in different places.
Take a ball peen hammer and smash the heck out of it. That is the advice from my husband who’s job is I.T.
A good magnet will do the trick nicely.
Some motherboards support multiple hard drives. If one hard drive is bootable you can connect the non-bootable hard drive and you may be able to recover the files directly. That’s what I did with my old PC, then the new drive eventually crashed, and I bought a lap-top (the old pc became obsolete anyhow) and I never got around to recovering the data from either of the the two old hard drives.
Not a stupid question at all! Yes, I tried to use the FTW to retrieve the files, but when I go into the program, it won’t recognize the external hard drive where they are stored (says it’s “not a valid location”—I’m wondering if I need to copy the old files and change the extension on the files so the wizard will recognize them? What extension would work?
I’m willing to try anything at this point!
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