How do I destroy the mother board of an old computer. I can't get it out. I am afraid for security reasons.

Question

I am concerned that someone could get access any to any personal information I may have left on the hard drive. I want to take a hammer to it and smash it but I can't get out of the metal box.

Answer 1

You can take the hard drive out and either smash it with a hammer or take a drill bit and drill through the hard drive. The drill bit will shatter the platters inside and there is NO way the data can be recovered.

Answer 2

smash it in the box with a hammer. Take a long screw driver and poke a few holes in it. BUT, that will not destroy any data on the hard drive. The Mother board contains NO data. It is all on the the hard drive.

Answer 3

actually, that's the least of your concern (if we're talking about typical home computers). What you should be most concern is your hard drive. Depending how sensitive the data is... computer forensics can even take chunks of data out a broken or burnt hard drive. You should look into a program that writes 1s and 0s (as this is what your data is composed of) over and over again to you hard drive. This ensures that there will be no recognizable files left.

When you delete a file, it doesn't necesarilly "erase" it. It only tells your windows that it is ready to be overwritten. So.. technically it's still there until new files will replace the area of the disk.

So far I don't have the needs of doing this but in case I do, I might check this program out
http://www.whitecanyon.com/secureclean-clean-hard-drive.php -- it looks decent but can't guarantee it.. but it would do the job according to its features.

the keyword that you should be looking in google is
hard drive cleaner, hard drive eraser etc

-edit not sure if you wanted the hard drive or the motherboard--
Ohhh if you JUST want to take out the hard drive and lost how to take it off from old computers, I would look for the model number of the pc and look for the user's manual on the net.. ORRRRRrr... take out a chainsaw :)

Answer 4

You need to remove the hard drive, it's held in by 2 to 4 screws, the take a power drill and drill holes through the drive with a large drill bit. 2 - 3 holes are enough.

Answer 5

Most HDD's have star shaped or allen type screws. You could buy a small set of these at radio shack. Unless you work at the Pentagon or Area 51, I doubt anyone is going to go to too much trouble to look at your data. just remove/destroy the circuit board that is on the outside of the metal case. Chances are, the HDD is so old, noone will be able to find a correct replacement to get it working again.

Answer 6

You don't need to destroy the motherboard, just the hard drive which is usually located right underneath the 3 1/4" disk drive or CD drive. You can use a powerful (one from a speaker) magnet to wipe the drive or as you suggest take a hammer to it. I preffer putting it in my drill press and don't stop till it has more holes than swiss cheese.

Answer 7

you need only destroy the hard drive, and formatting/partitioning will not do it completly, if you have EXTREMLY sensitive information to destroy, either take the disk apart and break the disks into powder and flush it down the toilet, or get a degausser. Low level formatting tools leave parity information behind.

Answer 8

There is nothing on the motherboard that you need worry about. It does not have a memory. Just make sure that you remove the hard drive. That is where all of your data is stored.

Answer 9

The disk is held in there somehow....do you have all the possible sides off the pc?
It's either a few screws, or a kind of 'clip mechanism'.
Easiest way would be to find out whats holding it in!

Answer 10

Thaere are softwares which erase the data permanently. You can try a low level disk formating