Hard drive destruction

**bcrepurposing** · 12-14-2014, 08:19 AM

i have commented in past on this but will repeat a bit of what i said before.

removing the boards will deter a average person. not a person intent retreaving your data. it is possible to figure out what board belongs there by trial error on known used parts.

putting holes in platter / cutting them up same issue. granted much more EXPENSIVE advanced required tech but can be read.

you are actually better using an electromagnet (wipes data) on them followed by an abrasive flap disk or sander (destroys storage paths and removes layer used to store it). storage is like on a cd. inside edge to outside in straight line.

the absolute best method in my opinion is to melt them. a good oxy / accetelene torch will do it with pacience.

if they can recover data from slag they deserve what they find.

my suggestion comes from experiance. i have 13 years as a repair tech and have done data recovery / sent out mangled devices for recovery so know whats possible.

also i do offer data destruction. melting the platters or complete drive while taking video has been sufficient and results in a intresting and unique coversation piece / paper weight. granted theres still paperwork and record keeping to do reguardless. i have done hospital / millitary hard drives for those of you that are familiar with standards there. melting meets and exceeds dod / nsa (government agency) standards.

**junkfreak** · 12-14-2014, 09:43 AM

I completely dismantle. Then I cut the disc in half. It takes more time . but I try to maximize my profits. But this could change as I get busier. I use to break down printers but I get so many I just take them in as white goods ( my yards category for them). Leaves me more space to hord higher $ material.

**Scrappah** · 12-14-2014, 01:05 PM

Originally Posted by bcrepurposing

i have commented in past on this but will repeat a bit of what i said before.

removing the boards will deter a average person. not a person intent retreaving your data. it is possible to figure out what board belongs there by trial error on known used parts.
my suggestion comes from experiance. i have 13 years as a repair tech and have done data recovery / sent out mangled devices for recovery so know whats possible.

.

It's really not like what you're making it out to be. The most common reason that HDD's die is because of a circuit failure on the logic board somewhere. As hard drive repair goes it's a relatively simple fix.

1: You look at ALL of the information on the front of the drive and locate an identical drive that was manufactured in the same month.

2: There's something like a ROM chip on the circuit board. That stores information that is almost unique to that particular drive. (It's something like a fingerprint.) The information tells the rest of the drive where to go and what to do.

Without that (specific) information the drive will spin up and sit there clicking.

3: The easiest way to transfer that ROM data over to your donor board is to send it out to a company with the equipment to do that job.

Here's where the problem comes in : Somebody hands you a random hard drive where the logic board is completely missing !

The level of difficulty just increased tenfold. All of that ROM information is lost. It takes very specialized equipment to re-discover it.

You're looking at a capital outlay of around 20 grand for that kind of gear and years of training in HDD repair.

True .... it can be done, but why on earth would somebody go to all the trouble for a criminal enterprise ?

There's tons more money to be made in legitimate data recovery and no risk of prosecution.