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Ask HN: Easiest way to ensure a HD is not readable?

1 points by watmough ↗ HN
Hi, I have quite a few old hard-drives from 80 MB upwards, that I'd like to throw away. The first three to throw away have been soaking in a bucket of salty water for the last 72 hours. Is this a reasonable way to ensure they are not readable?

4 comments

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nudge
Drive metal stakes right through them. I don't know if this will make it impossible to recover data, but it'd be difficult.
watmough
Thanks, I was hoping to avoid using my sledgehammer though!
mthomas
Seconded. Alternatively you can just take a power drill and drill a hole straight through the case into all the platters.
grecy
If you're serious about this, you need to destroy the platters as much as possible. I'd smash the drives open with a sledgehammer (faster than taking the screws out) then smash the platters into as many tiny pieces as possible. For good measure, you could then throw the pieces into a bucket with some nice strong magnets.