I have read that even if you format your hard drive multiple times, there are ways to retrieve the data. What's an easy and painless way to destroy an old hard drive so no one can read the data? lol, anyone have any good ideas?
Make a small fire in your fireplace/BBQpit or in a metal can and burn/melt the disks inside the case. Cutting into several peices isnt good enough if you must be damn sure.
Why not fill it up with giant garbage data/files? Or better, yet, don't you have a good hammer around?
As per US department of defense external contractor requirements: For magnetic media cleaning: Overwrite all addressable locations with a character, its complement, then a random character and verify. THIS METHOD IS NOT APPROVED FOR SANITIZING MEDIA THAT CONTAINS TOP SECRET INFORMATION. http://www.killdisk.com/ - is a $ utility. Regards. MJ.
actually http://www.killdisk.com/ has a free utility as well, but it doesn't comply with DOD requirements. someone with enough time and resources would probably be able to recover at least some data - probably reserved to military grade information recovery labs though. MJ.
If you want dod or better capabilities then use the eraser product developed by Tolvanen http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
Drill a couple holes in the drive, including drilling through the middle of at least one IC chip visible on the circuit board. Then put it into a Ziploc plastic "freezer bag", lay it on a cement floor, and smash it a half dozen times with a hammer. Then put the mangled drive into a plastic trash bag and fill up the bag with the contents of your cat's litterbox. The more kitty logs, the better. Pour in a quart of liquid ammonia (like one of these ), which the cat litter will absorb. Take the trash bag at least 5km from your house and toss it into someone else's garbage can. Ideally, a huge dumpster 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet, behind a large business or apartment complex.