Damage hard disk by software
So for those who have implicit that desire of destruction that characterizes the human being, we are going to see the most effective ways to destroy a hard disk so that information can never be obtained from its platters or memories.
The hard disk is one of the main elements of a computer’s hardware. Its task is to store all the information that is processed on our computer, that we download from the Internet and that we create ourselves. This information will always be stored in digital format, using zeros and ones (electricity and non-electricity), so the key will be to manage to erase these electrical impulses located in the memory.
Its condition of hard disk implies that it is really very hard, since it has an encapsulation built in aluminum and stainless steel of great hardness to ensure a clean chamber for the plates.
This is its main weakness, since by accessing this chamber we can practically leave the hard disk for dead. With the simple presence of a speck of dust that stumbles on the writing pins, they will almost certainly be rendered unusable. But be careful, because the information will still be contained on the platters.
How to destroy a hard drive quickly
While heat will not destroy the data, it will help turn your platters into piles of liquid. There are several ways to burn the device. One way is to use fire. This can be in the fireplace or in the hobo barrel. All you need to do is throw the device into the fire and then leave it there for a while.
If you are an adventurous hard drive destroyer, you can use a thermite. You should fill a large container with sand and then place the dish on top of the sand. Next, you should light a container with thermite on top of the dish. This technique produces a lot of heat that destroys the hard drive.
This is probably the fastest and most direct way to destroy the platter. You should place the hard drive on a hard surface and then hit it with a hammer. You should be sure to wear protective equipment. For example, you should wear safety glasses and gloves.
You need to use giant magnets. If you have money you can buy the magnets; however, if you don’t have money, you must drive to a local junkyard or scrap yard. The upside of this technique is that it not only helps to destroy the drive, but also ensures that all data is erased.
How to damage a hard drive without being noticed
Discover the best way to destroy an old hard drive safely. The age of privacy seems to be coming to an end, but that doesn’t mean you should voluntarily hand over all your information. Yet that’s what thousands of people do every day when they throw away an old computer.
Purging is a step up from cleaning up. It includes the use of logical methods, such as those above, and physical methods to make data recovery difficult. It has to make it difficult even for someone with a data recovery lab with all the sophisticated equipment.
Do the Clear method. Then do a cryptographic erase, which overwrites with zeros or a pseudo-random pattern. Do this several times. Then hit it with a very strong electromagnet, also known as a degausser.
Or disassemble the hard drive and run the strong magnet over each of the platters or disks inside. Honestly, this is more work than it’s worth. At this point, it can also destroy it completely.
How a hard disk can be destroyed
Because of the way data is written to SSD memory chips, each cell suffers wear and tear with every write. Thus, after a number of writes, that cell can no longer be written (change its state, or “programmed”) and becomes unusable.
SSD durability is calculated by the number of TBs written (TBW) they can withstand. This data is provided by the manufacturer and should never be taken as a guarantee that the disk will not fail before it has written that amount of data in its memory.
If the electronic circuit fails, all the data on the disk becomes inaccessible at once. The great advantage in the case of HDD is that the platters (our data) and the controller are physically separated. This allows us to look for another hard disk of the same model and exactly the same version of manufacture, to take off the plate where the electronic circuits that form the controller of the disk are, and to place it in the damaged disk. In this way, it is likely that we will be able to access the data stored on the platters again.