How do you "shred" sensitive data on a burned DVD?

Question

Fpr offices they invented paper shredders for documents with data you'd prefer not be read by anyone in the future. What do I do to my old Cd's and DVD's that I no longer need but want make sure they are unreadable by potential snoops?

Break them up into pieces? Scratch the face?
or is there another way that a business handles these old hunks of plastic?

Answer 1

Some shreaders come with the option to destroy card media (ie: credit cards). There is also a commercially available machine for less than $100 that can potentially destroy 100 DVDs or CDs in a matter of minutes. The "destroyed" media comes out looking much like most other discs, until you look at the "face" of the disk... It scratches the crap out of them.

Simplest way to prevent anyone from ever accessing the info sotred on the disc is to toss them into a fire, or expose them to the right amount of heat to cause them to melt into a featureless lump...difficult, as the plastic is flammable.

Short of that, scratch it up really good, and then chop it up. As for a generic method of destroying them...different businesses use different means.

Edit: Microwave...there is a distinct possibility of the metallic foil used to give the CD/DVD it's silver colour will damage the microwave emitter.
Edit: Magnets...that won't work...there is nothing magnetic on the CD/DVD that can be effected, except the slightest possibility of the ink.

Answer 2

Drop them in a small vat of acetone. Keep the vat covered. You should be able to dissolve a large number of CD's that way. Ultimately, you can take the Acetone/CD solution to a recycling facility. They can recover both the Acetone and the CD plastic. None of the information will be recoverable.

Answer 3

If you don't want it to ever be read from again, break it into pieces. There is no way to get data off of a broken CD/DVD.

Answer 4

apart from re writable media cd and dvd are write once only so there is no way to shred the data that i know of anyway

So just break em up

Answer 5

Shred them in a heavy duty shredder

Answer 6

new shredders have cd and credit card shredding capabilities

Answer 7

You can shred a CD or DVD.

Answer 8

New shredder machines have paper, cd, and credit card inputs.

Or,...magnets.

Answer 9

Snap into shards.
Burn (fire/toaster).
Frisbee throw into a ravine.
Bury in the garden.
Shred in office shredder (if it jams run away quickly!)

As i learned from Zelda if all else fails use fire.

Answer 10

scracthing it could still have the information recovered if that information is that important/vital...just break the cd into peices