Hard Drive Platter Destruction and Resale

I might have overlooked this answer, but I haven’t been able to find it yet. In order for me to get hard drives from companies or individuals I have to say that I will destroy them. While I have no issues doing this, I’m worried that I might lose out on the ability to sell them. My original plan was to sell the platters on e-bay to the precious metal recovery crowd. Looking on e-bay, I’m not seeing any platters that are bent or cut. Does anyone know if this is a deal breaker for the precious metal recovery folks?

Thanks!!!

" In order for me to get hard drives from companies or individuals I have to say that I will destroy them"

If you told them you would destroy them, you are honor bound to do so.

Correct. I'm not saying I won't. I'm just wondering if the metal recovery folk who buy them on e-bay will still want them. I don't see any offerings for cut up ones, so I'm guessing not. Guess I will just toss them in the aluminum basket.

i have made decent money on Ebay selling platters. I think the last time i sold them, i crammed 5-6lbs (100ish platters?) in a padded flat rate envelope and earned $20ish on the lot. Even after shipping and fees, i made close to $2/lb on them. I have seen them go for both higher and lower. Good luck!

I think if you sell the platters to someone else without being wiped, I think the buyer can put that used platter and still pull info from it. ( I think) Being a security minded person I just destroy the platters. Because even wiping the HD there is still a chance to recover some info from it. But destroying them I can guarantee your info will never be recovered.

No, the platters aren't like a CD or DVD. Once they're out of a hard drive they're impossible to read.

A tech would need to be working in a level 3 clean room and know the brand, model #, and exact firmware version of the hard drive that the platter came from to have any hope of recovering data from it.

Imagine that somebody hands you a box of 100 platters from 20 different drives. Some of the drives had one platter. Other drives had five platters. How would you ever figure out where they came from and in what order in the platter stack they belong ?

Can you imagine the problems involved ?

Ebay is flooded with platters unfortunately. Is there a buyer on this forum?

I always assumed someone would want to recover the platinum from them?

Originally Posted by CopperheadDave

Ebay is flooded with platters unfortunately. Is there a buyer on this forum?

Yes check the buyers and sellers section. At least one buyer there who buys HDD components including platters

Once you remove the platters off the spindle you have a better chance playing the lottery than recovering the information on those platters. To add to the problem if a smoke particle or one particle of dust were to be on the platter when trying to rebuild and read the disk would crash the head.The heads that read the platter float less than 5 nanometers above the platter. To put this is prospective a single fingerprint has a thickness of over 12,000 nanometers.

I had a guy beg me to lend him hard drives i get. For starters sounds like something inwouldnt do on my death bed and this being a way to another day and then add in i just met this perain and then add in the big old **** no factor and yeah. Come to find out what he wanted to do and im assuming doing on his own accord is searching these hard drives for forgotten bitcoin wallets jn hopes someone made one put 50 bitcoins in it when it was worthless and it got lost in the shuffle. It would be wuite the pay day but i would rather have drug money then do that. I can't litter and then sleep at night this would drive me to suicide.
Not really. Well maybe. Im not f I nding out is all i know

Quote {The heads that read the platter float less than 5 nanometers above the platter. To put this is prospective a single fingerprint has a thickness of over 12,000 nanometers.}

Somebody told me once ( about 2005 ) that a good comparison is "Its like a 747 flying 2 inches off the ground at full speed, counting the blades of grass as it goes by them".

Some hard drives write on more than one disc, and both sides of them, at the same time.
So it might be reading a string of bits the circumference of its track, and 8 strings at the same time.
Then the computer/hard drive board, re arranges them into the right order, into one long string of bits, and then sends them off to the main motherboard.

Sorta like simultaneously reading 8 pages of a book at once and compiling them into order in your brain.

If one of those discs is even one bit out from the others, its not gonna work...

The bay has definitely slowed on platters that actually sell. Market has been flooded.

i am an it tech and take hard drives for free to destroy since sometimes i make profit from them

to safely wipe them, if its dead, you need to open the drive, take each platter and run a metal screw driver over it until theres lines deep in it meaning it cant be read or fixed, dont listen to google of running a magnet over it i never trust that
if they work, i have special programs i can give you to wipe them for resale, do not resell them with out wiping them this way or they arent really wiped and can be recovered easly
the way i wipe them even the government cant restore it

Originally Posted by quazimoto

Once you remove the platters off the spindle you have a better chance playing the lottery than recovering the information on those platters. To add to the problem if a smoke particle or one particle of dust were to be on the platter when trying to rebuild and read the disk would crash the head.The heads that read the platter float less than 5 nanometers above the platter. To put this is prospective a single fingerprint has a thickness of over 12,000 nanometers.

as an it tech i have to go against this. itis still easly recoverable expecialy by the government
as an it tech, i take hard drives now for free rather then charging and i garantee i will destroy them
i have custom programs which wipe hard drives to even the government cant get the files back
at that point, i can sell them
all the time i come across dead hard drives
at that point, i open them up, take every platter and scratch both sides ontil theres thick indents with scratches meaning sliding a read/write head over it would just rip the sensor off it
at that point its nolonger recoverable
DO NOT TRUST THE "rub a strong magnet over it" TRICK

Originally Posted by hills

No, the platters aren't like a CD or DVD. Once they're out of a hard drive they're impossible to read.

A tech would need to be working in a level 3 clean room and know the brand, model #, and exact firmware version of the hard drive that the platter came from to have any hope of recovering data from it.

Imagine that somebody hands you a box of 100 platters from 20 different drives. Some of the drives had one platter. Other drives had five platters. How would you ever figure out where they came from and in what order in the platter stack they belong ?

Can you imagine the problems involved ?

as an it tech reading all these replies pisses me off to hell
you dont need the brand model number e.t.c to read it, people make and sell recovery devices for drive platters, the government recovers drives to get data all the time
this is the 3rd time ive explianed so im not explaining everything read my other comments

Originally Posted by Earther

I had a guy beg me to lend him hard drives i get. For starters sounds like something inwouldnt do on my death bed and this being a way to another day and then add in i just met this perain and then add in the big old **** no factor and yeah. Come to find out what he wanted to do and im assuming doing on his own accord is searching these hard drives for forgotten bitcoin wallets jn hopes someone made one put 50 bitcoins in it when it was worthless and it got lost in the shuffle. It would be wuite the pay day but i would rather have drug money then do that. I can't litter and then sleep at night this would drive me to suicide.
Not really. Well maybe. Im not f I nding out is all i know

Now I could look for bitcoin on them? because if they are on there and I destroy it they are gone forever right?