Laptop safe disposal

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jpoc

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#2109430 17-Oct-2018 10:26

DarthKermit:

Take the hard disk drives out and drill holes in them should do the trick.

What about the dust that will be released from any toxic materials in the drives?

That is why commercial drive destruction is not done that way.

richms

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#2109549 17-Oct-2018 11:10

Time spent on the drive erase for something with no practical value vs the speed of taking to a destruction place means that the destruction wins out IMO. If the drive has any value then I wouldnt be getting rid of it.

Really should deal with my pile of old drives sometime tho. One thing I was thinking of doing was pulling them apart to try melting down the aluminium to try casting it into something like I have seen people do on youtube.

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Geekzone

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#2117667 1-Nov-2018 08:48

Interesting, I saw a press-release today that reminded me of this thread. This company seems to do computer and parts decommissioning.

Rickles

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#2117673 1-Nov-2018 09:02

I recently heard from a friend in the USA who needed to dispose properly of a hard drive containing medical histories …. he was on a cruise around the north-east (Canada/USA), when his iMac went terminal.

A dealer in Quebec City set him up with a new machine, and cleaned off the old hard drive assuring my friend that it was now "clean" … my friend was not too sure and wanted the drive "terminated", which he did by tossing it off the ship when it was quite a few miles off the coast of Nova Scotia. Not exactly environmentally nice but he figured it would rust apart in a short time

Lias

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#2117766 1-Nov-2018 11:25

Rickles:

I recently heard from a friend in the USA who needed to dispose properly of a hard drive containing medical histories …. he was on a cruise around the north-east (Canada/USA), when his iMac went terminal.

A dealer in Quebec City set him up with a new machine, and cleaned off the old hard drive assuring my friend that it was now "clean" … my friend was not too sure and wanted the drive "terminated", which he did by tossing it off the ship when it was quite a few miles off the coast of Nova Scotia. Not exactly environmentally nice but he figured it would rust apart in a short time

Somewhat ironically, he's only really achieving security by obscurity (as in someone needs to find one hard drive in a big piece of ocean).. Assuming someone retrieved the drive, the data would probably still be recoverable by a decent recovery lab, as plenty of drives affected by flooding can attest I'm sure.

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Bung

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#2117768 1-Nov-2018 11:37

richms:
Time spent on the drive erase for something with no practical value vs the speed of taking to a destruction place means that the destruction wins out IMO. If the drive has any value then I wouldnt be getting rid of it.

Really should deal with my pile of old drives sometime tho. One thing I was thinking of doing was pulling them apart to try melting down the aluminium to try casting it into something like I have seen people do on youtube.

I scavenge the magnets out of old drives. They are good for holding doors open or shut. I have them taped to my drills to hold bits or screws. Theres plenty of scope for magnets, I couldn't be bothered using an old drive for storage.

Rickles

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#2117775 1-Nov-2018 11:52

>data would probably still be recoverable by a decent recovery lab, as plenty of drives affected by flooding can attest I'm sure.<

I think the idea was that the salty ocean would take care of it pretty quickly.

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Lias

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#2117816 1-Nov-2018 13:04

Rickles:

>data would probably still be recoverable by a decent recovery lab, as plenty of drives affected by flooding can attest I'm sure.<

I think the idea was that the salty ocean would take care of it pretty quickly.

You'd be surprised, places like DTI data and Kroll Ontrack can recover drives that have been immersed in salt water, sometimes for weeks or months.

1101

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#2117961 1-Nov-2018 15:43

Lias:

You'd be surprised, places like DTI data and Kroll Ontrack can recover drives that have been immersed in salt water, sometimes for weeks or months.

at what cost
Find a old hard drive in the sea, fishing net or washed up on the beach. Or inside a big fish/dolphin
Who is silly enough to pay for a very expensive data recovery on it :-)

Lias

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#2117964 1-Nov-2018 15:58

1101:

Lias:

You'd be surprised, places like DTI data and Kroll Ontrack can recover drives that have been immersed in salt water, sometimes for weeks or months.

at what cost
Find a old hard drive in the sea, fishing net or washed up on the beach. Or inside a big fish/dolphin
Who is silly enough to pay for a very expensive data recovery on it :-)

Moonbeams no doubt, but throwing a drive in the sea still isn't a good way to securely dispose of the data :-P

33coupe

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#2138953 4-Dec-2018 01:14

Just a suggestion I've heard OfficeMax do ewaste disposal

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