Old HDD and what you do with them?

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LFCJohnSmith

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I don't ever throw any old HDD's away and I also don't destroy them or completly format the info on them so as the info they had on them is never recoverable. My reason for this is because I have been told that it is good practice and is essential that all my HDD's are available for their contents to be accessed when ever the need may arise. The reason that I have been told this is for my benefit and no one elses, cause as I am sure you are aware if the police ever come a knocking they always want to see you HDD's for evidence. Don't get me wrog I don't EVER expect the police to come wanting to sieze my HDD's cause I aint a criminal, but if I was a criminal then I would want shut of any HDD's as they may have evidence on them that can be incriminating, but as I aint up to no good what have I got to hide? That is the point why I have been told that it is good practice and necessary to always keep them, cause in the same way you can't be proven to be guilty if you don't have your old HDD's you also cannot prove your innocence if you no longer have your HDD's.

What I want to know is do you do the same thing with your old HDD's or do you just throw them away?
 
Darik's Boot And Nuke | Hard Drive Disk Wipe and Data Clearing

common practice for company to wipe their hard drives before recycling.

I can't fathom any reason a old hard drive would contain evidence to prove innocence. i vote boot n nuke and recycle

They wouldn't contain anything and that is how they can prove innocence! My hard drives are there and are free for anyone to inspect whenever they see fit, my point is not from a professional point of view but from a personal point of view. I can understand why a company would want to destroy any data on the HDD's, but if your doing anything dodgy on your PC then you would destroy the drives wouldn't you. Once you have destroyed the drives then the HDD cant be used as evidence against you can it, but the same is true for the opposite, it can't prove your innocence in the way of proving that you haven't been using your PC at any point for anything illegal. So the logic is what would you have on your HDD that you would want to hide? I have been told how very important it is to keep hold of any HDD's that I may use, and that is not just a snippet of advice I was given but told it by a college.
 
dban or killdisk.
this is an entirely different subject all together but in the eyes of a prosecutor, there is no such thing as evidence of innocents, just a lack of incriminating proof. search youtube for "don't talk to cops".
 
dban or killdisk.
this is an entirely different subject all together but in the eyes of a prosecutor, there is no such thing as evidence of innocents, just a lack of incriminating proof. search youtube for "don't talk to cops".

I do understand wholly what you are talking about there, but I got told that under no circumstances should I ever destroy, completly destro or dispose of my HDD. I was told it is in my best interests to keep hold of all of my HDD's, and should any HDD that I have ever had be missing then it wont look good. I would also like to point out that I am studying to become a research scientist.
 
I used cyberscrub to wipe every thing before i retire them.

Otherwise I will throw the hard drive around a lot until I am satisified the platters have shattered.
 
The whole point of things like DBan and KillDisk is so that not only do they format the hard drive but they write over those areas a number of times so that the data cant be recovered. They are very close to government level data destruction that even some govt agencies use them when they "retire" old hard drives.

I would think that if a govt agency would use such a practice that it would be sufficient to say that a home user wouldnt have to much to worry about using them as well before they "retired" their hard drives.

My personal preference is to run DBan then Killdisk on the drive. After that take a sledge hammer, preferably about 20 pounds, and beat the drive into submission. After that i take part of the drive and dispose of it in the trash. About a year later i dispose of the rest of the drive. This not only ensures that the data can never be recovered should someone choose, but they would never be able to access the entire drive at any point in time. I also dont dispose of the drives from the same location.

I do the same thing when i dispose of a credit card, debit card or anything else that can be used to like it. I cut the card up in small pieces, dispose of part of it in the trash and get rid of the rest about a year later from a different location. So that even if someone tried to get the account number, they never have the full thing.

Some say I am paranoid in doing such things. But it is a small price to pay to make sure i have a piece of mind when i dispose of items.
 
The whole point of things like DBan and KillDisk is so that not only do they format the hard drive but they write over those areas a number of times so that the data cant be recovered. They are very close to government level data destruction that even some govt agencies use them when they "retire" old hard drives.

I would think that if a govt agency would use such a practice that it would be sufficient to say that a home user wouldnt have to much to worry about using them as well before they "retired" their hard drives.

My personal preference is to run DBan then Killdisk on the drive. After that take a sledge hammer, preferably about 20 pounds, and beat the drive into submission. After that i take part of the drive and dispose of it in the trash. About a year later i dispose of the rest of the drive. This not only ensures that the data can never be recovered should someone choose, but they would never be able to access the entire drive at any point in time. I also dont dispose of the drives from the same location.

I do the same thing when i dispose of a credit card, debit card or anything else that can be used to like it. I cut the card up in small pieces, dispose of part of it in the trash and get rid of the rest about a year later from a different location. So that even if someone tried to get the account number, they never have the full thing.

Some say I am paranoid in doing such things. But it is a small price to pay to make sure i have a piece of mind when i dispose of items.

Surely it would just be easier to burn your cards?
 
If i had a fire place or a pit in my yard to do such a thing sure. But i am not about to do that in my house with that hasty smell when i have a child.
 
LFC just Dban them then hit them many times with a lump hammer then toss them, if some one wanted to prove you have done something you shouldn't have they will find another way, I only keep my old HDD's when they are still useful in some fashion but I always make sure that the data is gone first.
 
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