What to Do with that Junk Computer?

What should you do with that old computer in the closet?  You know that you shouldn't throw it away because it has old files on it. People tell you that hackers are waiting for you to throw it away so they can get your data.  So you just hold onto it.  Here are a two suggestions that will make you feel extra tech savvy.

Wipe the disks clean with a utility or physically destroy the hard drives.

• Wipe the disks

Dariks Boot an Nuke will allow you to create a bootable disk that will allow you to wipe the hard drive on your old computer.  It will take many hours to complete but it will remove all trace of your data from the computer.  Once it is complete you can throw that computer away.

Dariks Boot and Nuke - http://www.dban.org/

• Remove the hard drive and physically destroy it.

This sounds like more fun.  You want to destroy data.  Let's do it.  I am going to give a brief tutorial on locating the hard drive and destroying it.  Do not attempt this if you think you might want to use this computer again.  There are a lot of computer designs.  Yours may not be designed exactly like my example.  

Put that old computer up on your workbench and figure out how to open it.  There may be screws or latches.  You should not require a hammer, but it may be therapeutic.

Once you have the case opened you will need to locate the hard drive.  I have labelled the guts of my example to help you locate the hard drive.

You will need to disconnect the cables connected to the hard drive and maybe some screws or latches to release it.

Once you have the hard drive removed you can find your favorite method of destroying it.  Hard drives are actually very delicate.  You can magnetize it, drill holes through it, soak it in a bucket of salty water, target practice with it, disassemble it.  I had a friend run over one with a car.  While it did crush a lot of the drive I don't think it is a very effective method.

I have a very old electromagnet that I can use for  hard drives.  I used to use it to wipe 5.25" floppies for my Tandy 1000.

I am going to disassemble the hard drive for this blog.  

In most cases there are 7 hex screws that have to be removed.  6 that you can see and 1 hidden.  You may have to purchase some hex heads to remove the screws they are small.  I purchase mine from Ifixit (http://www.ifixit.com/Store/Tools).

Here is a fuzzy picture of the screw.

Here are the bits

Now lets open this drive.  The hidden screw is right under the warranty disclaimer.

Once you get the cover off you see this.  This particular hard drive is bad but it could likely be repaired.  A hard drive works soft of like a record player.  It looks like the arm got stuck.  It likely killed bits where it sits but the majority of the data is probably intact.  Some companies will take these platters out of the hard drive and put them back into another for disaster recovery services.  It is not cheap but it can be done.

Now start taking out the screws

These are actually very strong magnets.  Be careful with them.  They will ruin a phone, memory card, monitor, other hard drives.  

These screws are holding the platter locked together

Here is a pile of the carnage

You can use the platters for wind chimes or something shiny.  I usually keeps the magnets and run them over the disks to make them unusable.  You could additionally scratch up the platters with a screw driver before putting them in the trash/recycle bin.    If you didn't do anything to damage the platters someone could (Highly unlikely) put it all back together again and get the data.  

You can now put that computer out on trash day.

Adam Bell
Senior Systems / Network Engineer
Sublime Computer Services
We make your technology work

615-942-0850
adam@sublimecomp.com
www.sublimecomp.com