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Picture of henryaz
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MRI machine.
 
 
Posts: 10778 | Location: South Congress AZ | Registered: May 27, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Ammoholic
Picture of Skins2881
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This is a no brainer. Use bullets.




Link



Jesse

Sic Semper Tyrannis
 
Posts: 20756 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: December 27, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Eschew Obfuscation
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quote:
Originally posted by r0gue:
If you drive a nail through it, you'll typically shatter the platters to very small shards.

This is the way to guarantee the data is gone.

I used to support the IT dept of a very large retailer. When we upgraded the POS devices at our stores, the old devices had customer information, PHI, and credit card data on them.

So, for the vendor who did the deinstall of the old stations, we wrote into the contract that each drive had to be removed from the device and have four screws drilled through it. This had to be done in the store in the presence of the store manager.


_____________________________________________________________________
“Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again." - Will Durant
 
Posts: 6370 | Location: Chicago, IL | Registered: December 17, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Step by step walk the thousand mile road
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quote:
Originally posted by Tailhook 84:
quote:
Originally posted by r0gue:
If you drive a nail through it, you'll typically shatter the platters to very small shards.

There are better tools for this task. I have a .22 tool, a .223 tool, and a .308 tool specifically made to fix stuff like dead hard drives, stubborn Keurig coffee makers and other recalcitrant items that refuse to work properly. Discovering what tool is the right tool for the job is part of the fun.


.73 caliber 1 oz slug.
A few times.





Nice is overrated

"It's every freedom-loving individual's duty to lie to the government."
Airsoftguy, June 29, 2018
 
Posts: 31378 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: May 17, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Live long
and prosper
Picture of 0-0
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Been said before, removing the drive is simple and usually only involves a few screws and a connector or two.

It is practical and cheap to buy a case and reuse the drive as a backup drive or dedicated drive for other purposes.
While at it, recover the laptop ram, you never know, it might turn into someone 's happy karma.

0-0


"OP is a troll" - Flashlightboy, 12/18/20
 
Posts: 12090 | Location: BsAs, Argentina | Registered: February 14, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
His Royal Hiney
Picture of Rey HRH
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Great replies. And in less than 24 hours.

I have some time on my hands these days (after what's already in my queue), I'll consider which options I'll take. Ensigmatic's proposal that it might be just a bad battery sounds plausible, also.

It's also interesting to learn SSD's have a higher data latency which is counter-intuitive to me.

Using bullets is out of the question although the thought reminds me of playing Hickok while doing so.



"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946.
 
Posts: 19582 | Location: The Free State of Arizona - Ditat Deus | Registered: March 24, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Get my pies
outta the oven!

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quote:
Originally posted by mbinky:
I used a program called DBAN before. It would boot from a disk and overwrite a drive as many times as you wanted. Even with three passes it would take forever so I just physically destroy them now.


That doesn't help the OP, he stated he's got a dead laptop with a bad motherboard.


 
Posts: 33604 | Location: Pennsylvania | Registered: November 12, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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First thing to try is to pull the battery and try to fire the laptop up that way; I've had a laptop with a battery so bad and an adapter so wimpy, it could either charge the battery or run the laptop, but not both. If it works, you can snag whatever data you want, then decide whether to obliterate the drive.


===
I would like to apologize to anyone I have *not* offended. Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.
 
Posts: 2064 | Location: The Sticks in Wisconsin. | Registered: September 30, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of Rinehart
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Any 2.5" (laptop) SATA drive can be accessed with the adapter back from a external similarly sized drive like Seagate or Toshiba and others.

Many portable external USB SATA drives have a SATA adapter/connector that plugs into the drive inside the case and it fits right into a bare drive. That's how I set up and repair drives in similar situations.

As detroit192 mentioned, you can also buy a cheap adapter on ebay that will allow you to connect older IDE or SATA and other type bare drives.
 
Posts: 1507 | Location: PA | Registered: March 15, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Nullus Anxietas
Picture of ensigmatic
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quote:
Originally posted by Rey HRH:
It's also interesting to learn SSD's have a higher data latency which is counter-intuitive to me.

That's because SSDs have spare blocks and do "wear levelling" by swapping which blocks are actually in use at any given time. So, when you erase or overwrite data, a copy of that data may still be on blocks that have been swapped into "spare" space at the time.



"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher
 
Posts: 26009 | Location: S.E. Michigan | Registered: January 06, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Not really from Vienna
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I did mine by removing the hard drive and erasing it manually with a 2lb engineer's hammer.
 
Posts: 26852 | Location: Jerkwater, Texas | Registered: January 30, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
goodheart
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If you're squeamish about killing hard drives, you may be able to find a place like this:

Secure hard drive shredding - watch while you wait


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Posts: 18016 | Location: One hop from Paradise | Registered: July 27, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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call Hilary! shes good at that
 
Posts: 27 | Location: Southeast Connecticut  | Registered: January 30, 2017Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Armed and Gregarious
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quote:
Originally posted by Rictafer:
call Hilary! shes good at that
https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...450074324#7450074324


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"He was never hindered by any dogma, except the Constitution." - Ty Ross speaking of his grandfather General Barry Goldwater

"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want." - William Tecumseh Sherman
 
Posts: 12591 | Location: Nomad | Registered: January 10, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Itchy was taken
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15 rounds of 338 Lapua followed up by a sledge hammer to fold it will discourage most data thieves.


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Posts: 3999 | Location: Colorado | Registered: August 24, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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You can get an adapter for the drive to connect it to your other system. Pull anything you want off it.

If you're able to connect it directly (SATA, IDE, etc.), you can then boot up several USB bootable programs to run an erase. It is what I did on numerous servers at work. Email me if you want additional information.
 
Posts: 2768 | Location: Northern California | Registered: December 01, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I have disassembled them to remove the discs, then shattered the discs. There are some small, but very powerful magnets in the drive that I've recovered.
 
Posts: 1474 | Location: Washington | Registered: August 30, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Just dunk it in saltwater for a day. It will be ruined beyond any recovery.
 
Posts: 21335 | Registered: June 12, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Rule #1: Use enough gun
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I test fired my new P320 on some old hard drives I wanted to dispose of. Cool






When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. Luke 11:21


"Every nation in every region now has a decision to make.
Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." -- George W. Bush

 
Posts: 14826 | Location: Birmingham, Alabama | Registered: February 25, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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They look bullet-proof



I should be tall and rich too; That ain't gonna happen either
 
Posts: 358 | Location: NW NJ | Registered: December 07, 2015Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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