Short story long, I wish I had done this sooner, it's so much easier than I thought. I had been hanging onto some computers for a long time, longer than I wanted, because I didn't want lose control of the privacy of the drives in them. Not that there's anything crazy on them; pictures and audio and video of my kids, old programs I'd written, that sort of thing. I just care about privacy. Kinda pointless these days :) .
Even after I'd gotten rid of the machines I still held on to the hard drives, plus a bunch of external drives, and broken drives from other people's machines I'd fixed. That was part of the problem - these drives in one way or another didn't work anymore, so I couldn't run "dban" (wiping software) on them. If I wanted them wiped, it had to be physical. So anyhow there's a pile. I had dreams of taking them outside with a sledge hammer, but the little bit of research I'd done told me that was pointless.
Somehow what I'd missed in my reading through the years, was that you can EASILY get at the actual disks! All you need is a special bit or screwdriver, a hexagon star. It's a security head you can find in hardware stores or on the internet. You go through the cover side, rather than the side with a circuit board on it. There's the 5 or 6 screws around the edges, and one hidden under the label you have to dig a little for. Just scrape around with a sharp edge until you find the indent.
Next you pry up the cover. Once you get it going it comes off easily. There's another screw in the middle of the drive holding the disk(s) down, same style. Hold the disk as you turn the screw. Push the head to the side if needed, and remove any other hardware in the way using the same driver. Then the disk(s) should just plop into your hand.
I found that a vigorous rubbing on a piece of emery paper was enough to satisfy me that the data was gone. When I broke one by accident I was surprised to find it shattered like a cd, so that's an option too. I googled that they can be made of aluminum or glass.
So that's all there is to it. Now I gotta find a way to securely recycle all those old broken cell phones I'm sitting on :)
Addendums:
(Some details I found out as I worked my way through the pile :) ).
- If there are two or more disks in a drive, there will be a collar between them. Just pry the collar up without breaking the disk.
- Some drives don't have the security-headed screws, but instead regular Phillips-head.
- Some of the covers are also glued down. They still can be pried up. It's easiest to start from the end where the connections are.
- It's real easy to strip the little screwdrivers. But they are cheap :) .
- The drives should be recycled as electronics, even though they are in pieces.
- Sometimes it's easier to unscrew the hidden screw right through the label than to pry the label up.
