Wiping a hard drive

I'm looking to dispose of an old laptop that broke.

I used to do online banking on it and ideally want to wipe the hard drive, but don't really know how to do it

Is it simply a case of removing it and smashing it up?

That's one way of doing it, I guess, but even then if someone was particularly interested in seeing what was on there they could probably piece it together. As well as battering the hell out of it, I'd suggest at least formatting it before doing so.

I have a feeling that formatting, while it appears to wipe everything, still retains some sort of fingerprinting from its previous states. Someone with more hardware knowledge will probably be able to confirm/deny that...

copywipe - download it for free from

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php

Low level format will do it, but beat it with a hammer few times that will do the trick

Fire is good for ruining magnetic drives...

Fire is good for ruining magnetic drives...

(insert nodding head smiley thing here)

Would putting it in a microwave work?

Would putting it in a microwave work?

Only if you're looking to wipe the microwave too.

Would putting it in a microwave work?

Sometimes you can't tell if someone is being sarcastic. ;-)

Fire is good for ruining magnetic drives...

It depends on how desperately somebody wants to get the data back. I've seen some pretty shot kit give up useful info.

That's one way of doing it, I guess, but even then if someone was particularly interested in seeing what was on there they could probably piece it together. As well as battering the hell out of it, I'd suggest at least formatting it before doing so.

 

I have a feeling that formatting, while it appears to wipe everything, still retains some sort of fingerprinting from its previous states. Someone with more hardware knowledge will probably be able to confirm/deny that...

I read a whitepaper the other day that said it is sometimes possible to retrieve partial data from a track that had been overwritten 100 times !