Hard Drive Disposal & Recycling

When you first realized that you needed to do something about that growing pile of no-longer-used hard drives at your workplace, you may have run a few Google searches like, “How to destroy a hard drive with a hammer,” or “How to destroy a hard drive with water.” However, despite the fact that having all of your company’s staff members take a hammer to old office equipment might be a fun team building activity, a hammer is not effective hard drive destruction equipment.

A Scientific American article from 2015 referred to the interesting case of the San Bernardino suspects, who reportedly threw their laptop hard drive in the Seccombe Lake. The hard drive was thought to have incriminating emails relating to their prior planning of a shooting that left 14 dead and 22 injured.While the FBI never confirmed whether a hard drive was recovered from the lake, data forensic experts nevertheless said that information on a hard drive that had been left in water would still be easily accessible. “Water might short out the electronics, but that’s about it. The data’s still on the platters, regardless if they got wet or not.”

While the FBI never confirmed whether a hard drive was recovered from the lake, data forensic experts nevertheless said that information on a hard drive that had been left in water would still be easily accessible. “Water might short out the electronics, but that’s about it. The data’s still on the platters, regardless if they got wet or not.”

Similarly, attempting to destroy a hard drive by force will not effectively destroy the data contained on the hard drive, nor will hard drive data wiping: not enough to comply with your company’s data destruction policy, at least.

In fact, if you want to know how to destroy a hard drive quickly, you may be surprised to know that the quickest hard drive disposal method is actually to outsource the task.