Although, in the home, only dust can wipe your hard drive, definitely get rid of it and cannot recover information is not a simple task if we do it right. We can try to delete information from a hard drive, but at certain levels, we cannot ensure that the data stored cannot be recovered.
If you plan to get rid of an old hard drive and recycle, do not throw directly but you’ve formatted. It is safest to physically destroy, but not worth anyway. Takes note of the best ways there are to destroy a hard drive and its data so that they cannot recover.
Erase a hard drive: The safe way to do it
The immediate way that we usually associate to erase information from a hard drive is to delete files or format the drive. When we do this, actually what we get is to tell the operating system that is no free space to fill, but it is likely that the information will never come easy to overwrite and back.
To permanently delete information from a hard disk formatting, it must be multiple. You have to make several formatting followed to effectively override the information we want to remove.
The least we should not too old format a hard drive is twice but currently formatted insurance is associated with seven steps. That is the standard used by the Department of Defense of the US as a safe method to erase magnetic content.
But to be sure that a hard drive has been deleted permanently and can stay assured that our information will never be recovered, pass physical methods.
Definitely destroy a hard drive: The most effective methods
What techniques can I use to make sure the hard drive you want to destroy stay really useless? Depending on the information contained and the level of security you seek, you can resort to more home safer techniques or systems used in agencies like the NSA.
Wet it is not much, the fire itself
If you thought immerse the hard drive you want to leave unusable in water, for that which is an electronic component and we know the consequences of wetting them, forget it.
It is true that wet a hard drive will leave useless part of the electronics and may lose some information from residues that may remain on the hard disk platters, but retrieve information from the hard drive is relatively simple for a specialized company which transplanted the part including the information using a new electronic part (donor) with which to return to life your hard drive.
Luckier if we can run an SSD or flash drive. In some of these cases, wet electronics, yes it can make it impossible to read the data.
If instead we choose to fire water, the end of the hard disk information is not so rosy. An intense and lasting ceasefire will eventually leave enough dishes unreadable even for specialized companies.
The magnets can be worth, but they are very powerful
A classic techniques to delete information from a classic hard disk, you use a magnet. Being magnetic storage, a magnet could hamper reading information and even make it disappear. To achieve this it is better to open the hard drive and leave the dishes in the air and then rub with the magnet.
If the magnet is powerful enough have an unrecoverable hard drive, especially if you use a commercial degausser. But it is not 100% sure we’ve eliminated the possibility of retrieving that information.
You may also like to read another article on YellowTube: The 8 best wireless hard drives
Physical destruction: Hence no turning back
For a hard disc is really useless and our data disappear forever, physical destruction is the only thing that can ensure us if we perform properly. A good way to start is put into operation, for example with an outer shell, and hit him. Physical damage to the dishes will be more important than if histograms with the hard drive off. But make sure even more.
Once separated the electronic part of physics, the idea is to destroy as much as possible the dishes . Depending on the material they are constructed (glass, ceramic, metal …) methods will be more successful than others. We can from scratch them to hit them with a hammer or even proceed to drill with a drill.
If we tap we painted or, at the household level will become inaccessible. But even if the hard disk does not rotate or have a good definitely inaccessible area, at the professional level is possible to recover much of the information, yes, at a price that makes it viable only if legal or business reasons at the highest level.
To ensure that the record really is invalidated for the recovery of some information, it is best to beat him to smithereens, with some pre-drilling and even be damaged significantly the surface of the plates previously with acid or sanding. That combination drilling and sanding is final.
The physical destruction of a disk that stores information not want it to be recovered is much easier with SSD flash drives or memory. In such cases the beatings would destroy the memory cells and there would be no chance of recovery.