How To Dispose Of Computer Hard Drives
How To Dispose Of Computer Hard Drives – Did you know that as your company upgrades technology, retires old and obsolete equipment, and gets rid of damaged devices, you may be increasing your information security risks? Without proper data destruction, criminals can still retrieve the confidential data they host, leaving your company and customers vulnerable to theft.
The following article dispels common myths about hard drive failure and explores the best ways to handle malfunctioning technology.
How To Dispose Of Computer Hard Drives
As long as the hardware still exists, the sensitive data on it is at risk of misuse. Failure to include old computer hard drives, retired servers, unused flash drives, external hard drives and outdated mobile devices in your information security strategies increases the risk of a security breach, which could lead to significant financial, reputational and compliance impacts .
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Unfortunately, not all companies consider hard drive destruction and other technologies in their security plans. According to the 2020 Data Protection Report, nearly half of small business owners do not have a policy for disposing of confidential information about end-of-life electronic devices. Physically destroying the hard drive, SSD and magnetic media is the key to making it unreadable and preventing any replacement.
Wiping, removing, or reformatting a hard drive or other electronic device does not completely remove the data from the device, and forensic software programs can recover the information. A quick internet search reveals countless tutorial blogs and videos that walk the data recovery process. Although aimed at people who accidentally wipe or modify their machines, the same strategies can be used by criminals to access private and confidential data from discarded equipment. You should always destroy hard drives or other electronic devices before recycling, because there is no way to ensure that equipment sent for recycling cannot be accessed by information thieves.
A common misconception about hard drive destruction is that magnets placed on or near the technology will destroy the stored data. While this may have worked at one time, today’s technology is more advanced. Even if a magnet were able to destroy the data, it may be possible to repair the information.
If your company is unsure how to properly destroy hard drives and other equipment, you may choose to store these items in a locked cabinet or storage area. However, this also carries risks. Even if the technology is secure, sensitive information remains on the equipment and can therefore be stolen.
What’s The Best Way To Handle Old It Equipment?
Physical destruction of hard drives and other electronic media is the only 100% safe way to permanently remove data from technology. While you could use a DIY approach and take a hammer to the equipment, this is not reliable or prudent and can pose safety risks to workers. A better option is to have it physically destroyed by a professional hard drive destruction service such as Shred-it. Not only will we cut or crush the device to dispose of it, but we guarantee a secure chain of custody from the moment we receive it until it is demolished. We also offer regular scheduled pickups, bespoke services and delivery options. In addition, we provide a detailed Certificate of Destruction (or Proof of Service) that includes the manufacturer’s name and the device’s serial number. When the equipment is unusable, we recycle the hard drive with local partners to reduce the amount of material headed to landfills.
Shearing and crushing are two ways to physically destroy technology so that data can never be recovered or reconstructed.
The shear shreds the entire hard drive into small pieces with 40,000 lbs. destructive force. The process completely eliminates drive plates, mechanisms and electronic components, making data unrecoverable.
Crushing involves punching an irreparable hole in each hard drive with 7,500 lbs. of force pressure. This also wipes out the drive’s platters, rippling and breaking the magnetic surfaces and making the drive’s data unrecoverable. Either option is effective in destroying equipment, and our document destruction experts can recommend the most appropriate method for your situation.
How Do Hard Drives Work?
Hard drive corruption is an important and often overlooked aspect of information security. Learn more about how Shred-it can help you and your company properly dispose of old technology. There will come a time when you feel like your computer is slowing down, becoming less efficient than it used to be, and what comes to your mind is to either recycle or sell the parts to get a brand new computer. However, is it safe to do so?
Most people would think that formatting the hard drive would clean the drive completely, so it would be safe to sell it as a used item. Unfortunately, without proper precautions, someone can easily retrieve and extract personal or corporate data previously stored on the drive.
If you really need to sell your computer parts, it’s best to block the hard drive. You can still use the hard drive, either by converting it as a spare or a secondary drive. This way, you don’t risk your personal data being exported, especially if you have stored personal information and photos on it.
The easiest way to get rid of your hard drive is to physically destroy the drive using an industrial shredder. This method would turn the hard drive into pieces of metal, making it impossible to recover.
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This is an expensive approach to discarding the storage device, as you need a specific degaussing machine (which can cost up to US$10,000). However, this method eliminates the magnetic fields on the hard drive, causing it to become permanently damaged and unable to read or write data to the storage medium.
This method does not permanently damage the hard drive as it only erases the data by overwriting each sector of the hard drive. However, there is still a small chance of recovering the data with the right tools and techniques. The process must be repeated 7 times to ensure that the data is completely erased. This method is easy as there are many software that can help you delete your data safely. Modern hard drives can hold a huge amount of data, even one from your 10 or 15 year old discarded computer. People often say “No one would care about my data!” You might be surprised.
Email and social media login credentials are highly valued by hackers. Access to your email account will allow a hacker to reset passwords to many of your other accounts, including PayPal, Amazon, social media, cloud storage, and possibly even banking (although hopefully you’re using authentication 2 factors for the most sensitive). A list of your contacts would allow a hacker to impersonate you and send them convincing scams. A hacker may be able to collect snippets of all kinds of data about you, harmless in themselves, but useful in constructing an identity theft attempt. And more.
Destroying data on SSDs, memory sticks and memory cards requires rather different methods. See my companion guide How to safely and securely destroy data on SSDs and memory sticks if this is your problem.
Effective Ways To Completely Erase A Hard Drive
To reassemble your device, wait for someone to invent a time machine, then take a trip back in time. Seriously, there is no other way!
But if that doesn’t work for you, please dispose of the scraps of your daily work responsibly, in a manner suitable for e-waste.
Choose a size and copy the code below to embed this guide as a small widget on your website / forum. Disposing of old or unused hard disk drives (HDDs) has never been more necessary. Researchers at Cybersecurity Ventures predict that the global annual cost of cybercrime will reach $8 trillion by 2023. One of the easiest ways to access confidential files comes from acquiring old hard drives that have not been properly destroyed.
Instructions on how to dispose of hard drives are often inaccurate or inadequate. As a result, public knowledge of the practice does not match its significance. Keep these two unavoidable realities in mind when using hard drives:
What Is Hard Drive Destruction Service
In the event of a hard drive failure, users can create full backups or contact a certified data recovery service to recover irreplaceable files. However, most users do not have destruction or disposal strategies after replacing damaged or obsolete hard drives.
To protect personal data after the life of the hard drive, people should assess their specific needs and then proceed with the appropriate method.
Whether your use of a hard drive is personal or professional, it contains valuable, private data. If the hard drive falls into the wrong hands, there can be huge consequences and costs. The hard drive data could include information such as bank accounts, credit cards, social security numbers, login credentials, or intellectual property.
Deleting data does not ensure that it is completely removed from the hard drive. Through various programs and techniques, malicious actors can recover deleted data, leaving individuals and organizations at increased risk for identity theft and other cybercrimes. These entities must invest time or resources in reliable hard drive destruction to avoid potential data breaches.
Facts & Myths: Hard Drive Destruction
Secure Data Recovery, the authority in RAID, SSD and hard drive recovery since 2007, acquires old hard drives in various conditions to facilitate hard drive repair services. We supply unused models for replacement parts. In a sample of fourteen hard drives that were either marked dead or listed strictly for spares,
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