Always delete your hard drive...

[David M]

Always delete your hard drive before getting rid of your computer. Here are two stories that drive home the point.

http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/...bay-177101.php

http://news.yahoo.com/s/wlwt/20060601/lo_wlwt/9303216

[Kareeser]

If I understand the first one correctly, the crooked seller got what he deserved, although he may have gotten too much for the annoyance he committed.

The second one is scary. All it takes is one middleman to become lazy, and who knows what can happen...

Zero-writing is nearly foolproof, right?

[spartan015]

thats what ive heard. rewrites the hdd like 15times, so over and over washing it out. u can't read the magnetic plates or what ever it is i forgot how hdd works lol

speaking of which, one way works is to fry the hdd... accidental electrical discharge honest... weird affect kinda like an EMP but not since its not atmospheric, but it did ruin the drive.

[juppy]

Originally Posted by Kareeser Zero-writing is nearly foolproof, right?

Supposedly, but who knows? It's *supposed* to fill every bit on the hard drive with a zero, which would seem to effectively wipe it clean. I've heard stories of people zero-writing a hard drive and still being able to recover some things though too. I don't know if those are rumors only or if there's some truth to them.

I bought a used hard drive once for my old Pentium 1, and apparently it still had some info on it as well. The guy I bought it from got it for me off of eBay (I didn't have internet at the time) and he told me that it had been thoroughly wiped by the previous owner and that he made sure of it as well. I admit, it *looked* clean.....wasn't anything on it when I installed my OS to it. But after a couple months of using it, I went to some online store, and when the page loaded it said "Welcome back, Scott!" Needless to say, my name isn't Scott. It had his first and last name and his city/state info on that page and his purchasing history of things he had bought on another page (bought a 25" tv and a vcr from them ). I don't know how that cookie or whatever it was got through the wipe untouched, but apparently it was still on there......somewhere. Since witnessing that firsthand, I decided I was never going to sell one of my used hard drives to anyone. Last one I had got the platters taken out of it to make a nifty wind chime and my brother's using the magnets to hold workorder pages on his toolbox at his job.

[blue60007]

What's scary is that I have been to that Best Buy before (and bought stuff)!

[FLG]

All the HDD's me and my family have ever used are sitting next to me, if i decide to throw em out...there not going out in once piece.

[mbossman2]

i have (from my radio days) a big bulk tape eraser (a big plug in electro magnet). it seems to do a good job.

[David M]

I was just wondering the same thing....if waving a big electromagnet might wipe the HD clean without having to drill or take other destructive measures? It just may make the HD reusable without having to rely on someone elses software to erase the HD.

Anyone had any experience doing this..other than mboss?