How to securely wipe a dead hard drive
How do you remove sensitive data from a busted hard drive?
By Lincoln Spector | PC World | Published: 10:22, 30 November 2009
Hard drives almost always contain some potentially compromising information, such as credit card and social security numbers. You should always wipe a hard drive before turning it over to someone else. But that job is particularly difficult if the hard drive no longer works.
But why would you even need to secure a drive that doesn't work? If the drive's electronics are fried but the mechanical components are still working, someone could fix it without destroying your data, which could then fall into the wrong hands.
What you have to do is find someone who can degauss your drive. Translation: Someone who can erase it with a very powerful, very expensive magnet.
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One thing you could do is talk to the people you're returning the drive to, whether that's the manufacturer (Dwma's drive died while under warranty) or a recycling center. They may offer a policy of degaussing drives when they receive them.
If they don't, or if you don't trust them, you can find a company in your area that degausses drives.
Comments
Nick said: I use a company called Blue Data wwwbluedatacouk come to your site and destroy hard drives using a CESG approved machine All serial numbers are recorded therefore the whole process is auditable
doctorv said: A better way is simply to physically destroy the hard drive There are companies which sell shredders if your company has quite a few drives which need to be disposed For lower volume use drilling a number of holes through the platters renders the disk information unreadable
Audrey Crawford said: Check out UK degausser manufacturer Verity Systems