How can you erase a hard drive that has been removed from a computer?

Question

Magnets? Dropping it on the ground? Any ideas?

The actual hard drive case must stay intact.

No, not trying to hide child porn, but that was pretty funny.

Even if I can render it useless, that is okay by me. The case has to stay in tact though.

Answer 1

1. Find a large subwoofer (you know the kind you can hear from blocks away)

2. Set Hard Drive on top of magnet. If it doesn't stick then the magnet isn't strong as it could be.

3. Wait a couple minutes. Flip. Repeat.

4. You can't guarantee this will erase EVERYTHING. Not even formatting will necessarily do that. There are programs that will wipe it to certain DoD standards but that is outside the scope of your question.

Alternatively you could boil it in salt water, then let it sit in a hot car for a couple days to dry. This will probably remove labels, but a brief soak will probably be unnoticeable.

Answer 2

By formatting the hard drive. Dropping it to the ground will probably destroy the magnetic read write heads rendering the hard drive useless.
You can make that drive a secondary drive on a running computer. It will show up as drive d or e. Go to the command prompt and change directory to the drive and type in the format command. It will ask for confirmation. Type in Yes. It will erase the data. Alternatively, you can right click on the drive in Windows and click format. Good luck.

Answer 3

You mean, destroy the data? Take a hammer to it.

If you want the "professional" way, use thermite and pour it over it. That will disintegrate it.

Disclaimer: I do not take responsibility if any of your body parts are disolved.

And yes, you could use a very high-powered magnet to disrupt the data. But exposing the inner discs to air is pretty good too, dust particles do a lot of damage.

Answer 4

without a trickypersistent, the pc won't function yet a trickypersistent with none archives is only as ineffective. the education on the disk will proceed to be on the disk whilst bumped off as will the education and not on the workstation. additionally, a trickypersistent without a working laptop or pc is only an aluminum field and no archives is obtainable and be very careful to stay away from dropping or banging thepersistent around or you're able to lose the education as a results of break. additionally, in case you intend on procuring yet another pc, your education won't be immediately obtainable as a results of fact which you plugged it into a similar slot. lower back it up and use the report and Settings pass option to bypass your data competently. good luck

Answer 5

run a very power magnet like a speaker magnet or even a home made or professinal electro magnet that will efective erase it but you,ll need an expert to put things like operating systems and drivers for a floopy drive or cd drives back on.

Answer 6

Either you use it as a frisby if you dont want the disk further anymore...
or use a another PC and just attach the drive as secondary to it..
and format it
or use magnets(strong horseshoe) and use them on the disk in
particular manner acc to the platters on the disk you will get the data destrroyed on it

Answer 7

once the hard drive is removed from the system, the only way to remove (or alter) the data on it would be with strong magnets....
that is, if you still want the drive to function later on at some point...
otherwise, it's hammer time

Answer 8

You need to damage the platters inside so that nobody can use it. I would blast it with a big rock or a sledge hammer.

Answer 9

extract the actual disk from the case, run a grinder over it's entire surface several times.

Answer 10

Strong magnets should do the trick. If you don't care what the drive looks like, burn it or smash it. Or smash it and then burn it.