How to dispose of old hard drive?

I'm replacing the hard drive of my aunt's laptop, it was clicking and kept crashing so I decided to replace it with a WD Caviar Black 320.

I've already wiped the old hard drive with DBAN as best as I could (kept getting Kernel panics after an hour) so now I want to try and find out any local places I can mail it to so they can properly scrap and recycle it. Any websites listing such locations available?

 

Next time don't worry about DBAN, it is completely superfluous to a simple full format. Also hard drives don't contain toxic or valuable compounds like other things might. You can just throw it in the trash. I guess if you really want you can open it up and separate out the aluminum parts to recycle and the others to throw in the trash.

 

I remember specifically reading a story on how groups purchase used hard drives or even go dumpster diving for personal information.

Also a format doesn't delete anything, just the partition table. Everything is recoverable with free software.

Well I'm rather green and like to recycle whatever I can, like I recycled my parent's old computer monitor. Anyways I found this site:

Free Hard Drive Recycling

All I have to do is pay for shipping and USPS priority flat-rate envelope is $4.95 so I think I'll do that. Thanks for the advice.

 

That is called quick format. Trottel is mentioning full format if you read carefully.
If you don't know the difference --> google


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Just throw it in the recycling bin..

 

smash it with a hammer if you are paranoid

 

Sledgehammer - relieves stress and prevents anyone from recovering the data

 

For the record I used a really strong magnet on some old hard drives I was throwing away. I plugged one of them in after I did so... It did not do anything.... Smash it with a hammer.

 

Reading comprehension... tangents...

Try entering your zip code into this site:
DigitalTips: Green

 

As noted, a hammer will fix your paranoia about having data recovered.

When I destroy hard drives, I smash them to the point where the casing splits open and I'm able to shatter the platters into tiny fragments. It looks pretty cool.
Alternatively I take them to the shooting range and put a few 30-06 shells through them.

 

Difference between a Full Format and a Quick Format.
Personally a Full Secure Erase ought to be enough, any more extreme measures are redundant.

 

noooooooo don't recycle it, open it, its full of fun lol, the magnets are uber, and the platters can be used for many things as well, plus if you worry about privacy that much, take out the platters and smash them or something

 

But how do they work?

 

what he said

by opening it, you will enjoy it and it won't work anyway because dust will get to the platter

 

Assange may need a few more rounds, assuming the three character organization has the ability to recover 'historical' image

 

they are neodymium magnets so its unbelievably strong, usually i can find 2-4 pieces in a HDD, even if you can't think of anything to do with the platters you can still use them as mirrors or coasters even. i've scavenged up at least half a dozen old computers in my neighborhood and even the real dead ones (massive dent on the HDD) are still full of win inside

 

ah, rare earth matal, they are gaining some value recently and one day, they can be sold as scrap, I read that Japanese firms are thinking about recyling them as they supply from China is shrinking(and with higher price).

 

But that is just tin foil hat thinking. If the drive writes a zero , it will only ever be able to read a zero from that location (unless of course there is some sort of drive error or cosmic radiation). It might still be possible to recover bits and fragments of information from a drive that was blanked out, but that, if it is even possible, would be such a monumental task requiring so much expertise and technology that you are left with complete safety from your useless data falling into the wrong hands.

 

I appreciate everyone's advice, but I don't understand how using DBAN makes one paranoid while using Full Format or any Zero Fill method isn't.

They both take about the same amount of time, just one is more safer even if in most cases unnecessary it's like why not? Locking the door to your home is safe, locking both the door nob and dead bolt is just safer and doesn't require extraneous and uncomfortable effort.

*shrugs*

But yeah, if I wanted to be overthetop I would destroy the drive then send it's parts for recycle, but I decided to go ahead and just mail the drive intact to Back Thru The Future since they're gonna just shred the drive and recycle it on their own.

@Chimpanzee and Trottel

If I was Julian Assange I wouldn't trust just simply Zero Fill, as stated the US and plenty of other countries do have the resources and interests in snooping through their hard drive. I'd actually would just Degauss then physically destroy the drives if I had to delete anything, or just use TrueCrypt since even the US Government hasn't been able to recover anything encrypted with that software.

 

tin foil hat thinking, yes.

However, I did read some time ago that mentioned about a research where even RAM has 'historical image' that can be retrieved.

Which is why I mentioned Assange and 3 char organization , with a smily. Not something I would care, just a full format is good enough for 99.999% of people.

 

The feds use 8 wipes to ensure destruction, one is certainly not enough, been there done that.

Personally, I too use a hammer.
I just smash the soft cover to the point of damaging the internal disks and trash them. You don't have to break them, just damage them.

If someone is willing to go that far for the drive, they can have the information. The info is worth far less than the cost to recover at that point. No one working at the local landfill is going to bother (or has the knowledge) and selling/giving it to someone willing, is going to have access to far easier to recover disks.

 

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lol, machine built just for destroying harddrives. Im sure theives looking to steel data are doing it in bulk, they wouldnt be searching every nick and cranny for just harddrives. I have never used software to recover stuff off of harddrives, it always sounded a bit unrealistc but if it happens then I guess its true.

 

They shred tons of stuff, that video just happens to be hard disks.

 

Well, now we know where the bodies went.

 

Once is enough if the platters aren't going to be removed from the drive and worked on by a team in a microelectronics lab. They specify that because the cost of doing so is not so great, they are overly cautious, and compromising the security of the data could potentially be very costly.

 

That's what Back Thru The Future is going to do for me.

 

As for the "green" aspect, don't worry, it'll all be properly recycled in Ghana and some other advanced African countries:
YouTube - Electronic Waste in Ghana