Help with Hard Drive

[O'Doyle Rules]

Have a security issue, need help ruining harddrive. My motherboard went out, bought new system, now owner of old comp wants to go in and restor or retriev info from harddrive. This would not be good for me. I want to ruin it so no info ccan be retrieved without person knowing i did it, or what i did. can i open up the back and pour water in it? cant just pull the harddrive, would have no explanation for that.

 

[yamaha_1fan]

Are you tech savy?

Get the new box up and running. Take out old HD and put it in new box as a second HD (AKA Slave drive). Reformat drive, reinstall in old computer.

I dont know how a reformat works but my understanding on deleting files through windows is as follows. When you select files or folders to be deleted, windows does not actually delete them. Instead it marks that area as now recordable and will record over that area the next time you save something.


Maybe you could run a magnet over the drive?

 

[ninfan77]

Got a big magnet?

Why not just remove all of your data off the drive? Then reformat it....

 

[darkhollo]

Reformatting a hard drive does nothing really. All the data is still there. Only after several rewrites does it "go away" With the right forensic tools you can easily pull off data that has been "deleted". Formatting helps a bit, but for a savvy investigator it's of no issue.

Or put the old drive in your new computer as a secondary drive.. pull off the data the owner wants, put it on cd.

If it's of great concern do not hand over that hard drive in any working condition. If they are trying to retrieve files they will likely use a recovery tool which could unearth info you don't want found.

-dh

ps - On the new computer, look at putting all your sensitive files in a TrueCrypt encrypted file system. Super easy to do. It won't keep the NSA out of your pr0n but it will keep 99% of people out of it. I use one for all grow related info. It's not even mounted 24/7, its just there when i need and the rest of the time it looks like a random file.

http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=tutorial

 

[3dDream]

You can unformat and unerase a drive. You need a program to wipe the drive...

http://www.dban.org/

 

[O'Doyle Rules]

I'm not tech savvy, have NO IDEA how to reformat shit. Also, the motherboard on the old comp is broken, wont trun on or anything. I just need to ruin the harddrive.No way to do? I dont care if it ruins the whole comp, its worth it.

Reformatting a hard drive does nothing really. All the data is still there. Only after several rewrites does it "go away" With the right forensic tools you can easily pull off data that has been "deleted". Formatting helps a bit, but for a savvy investigator it's of no issue.

Or put the old drive in your new computer as a secondary drive.. pull off the data the owner wants, put it on cd.

If it's of great concern do not hand over that hard drive in any working condition. If they are trying to retrieve files they will likely use a recovery tool which could unearth info you don't want found.

-dh

ps - On the new computer, look at putting all your sensitive files in a TrueCrypt encrypted file system. Super easy to do. It won't keep the NSA out of your pr0n but it will keep 99% of people out of it. I use one for all grow related info. It's not even mounted 24/7, its just there when i need and the rest of the time it looks like a random file.

http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/?s=tutorial

how does this help me now? IT IS OF GREAT CONCERN and i dont want to hand it over, i want to break it

 

[boroboro]

You can unformat and unerase a drive. You need a program to wipe the drive...

http://www.dban.org/

Hey, pay attention to this guy, he knows what he's talking about. 5 years ago or so I used DBAN to wipe PCs being sold off by a bank. The program installed to a bootable floppy disk (floppy disk? maybe it was more than 5 years ago...). Insert the floppy in the PC, let it boot from the floppy, wait a while, and you've got a sparkling clean hard drive. Of course now the PC won't boot...

 

[O'Doyle Rules]

Hey, pay attention to this guy, he knows what he's talking about. 5 years ago or so I used DBAN to wipe PCs being sold off by a bank. The program installed to a bootable floppy disk (floppy disk? maybe it was more than 5 years ago...). Insert the floppy in the PC, let it boot from the floppy, wait a while, and you've got a sparkling clean hard drive. Of course now the PC won't boot...

this will work even if the motherboard is down? i cant see anything on the monitor

are you kidding me? theres no way to ruin a harddrive? what the fuck are they like roaches?

Im bout to set the mofo on fire

understand! the comp doesnt work! its broken! cant see nothing on monitor, motherboard is broke

 

[CaptainTrips]

Get a really big magnet. Throw it in a fire. I don't understand if there is a new owner how you are going to physically destroy the drive? And if you can't put the drive in a working PC, you cannot erase the drive.. All you could do is physically destroy it which the new owner probably wouldn't appreciate having a melted hd, lol.

 

[Papulz]

only thing i ever thought of (even though this is obvious damage) is to dissolve the drives to get rid of the etching in some kind of acid.

 

[O'Doyle Rules]

Get a really big magnet. Throw it in a fire. I don't understand if there is a new owner how you are going to physically destroy the drive? And if you can't put the drive in a working PC, you cannot erase the drive.. All you could do is physically destroy it which the new owner probably wouldn't appreciate having a melted hd, lol.

Heres my first post, is it not understandable?

Have a security issue, need help ruining harddrive. My motherboard went out, bought new system, now owner of old comp wants to go in and restor or retriev info from harddrive. This would not be good for me. I want to ruin it so no info ccan be retrieved without person knowing i did it, or what i did. can i open up the back and pour water in it? cant just pull the harddrive, would have no explanation for that.

We live in the same house, I used the comp, motherboard went down, got new comp. Original owner (who lives here) wants to fix and sell, that includes restoring or retrieving info form hard drive. the comp is ALREADY BROKE, SO IF i BREAK IT MORE, WHAT THE HELL? But I dont want it to look like i did. Thats why I said could i piur water in the back or some shit?
if it can't be fixed, well toss it. get it?
I got plant pics and forum info on it.

 

[CaptainTrips]

Well, no one is reasonably going to retrieve info off it if you used a magnet, or threw it in water and turned it on (lol) But if someone took that drive to a drive recovery place (thousands of $) its possible info could be retrieved. Your best bet is putting it in a working PC and running a secure format on it.... I imagine just submerging it in water would "ruin" it, but data could be retrieved by data recovery places.

 

[O'Doyle Rules]

person wont spend money retrieving it, just wanted to try and sell it iof possible. so I can open up the back and spray it with water?

 

[Papulz]

smash it with a hammer!

 

[O'Doyle Rules]

Im serious dude, dont post if you cant help

 

[CaptainTrips]

person wont spend money retrieving it, just wanted to try and sell it iof possible. so I can open up the back and spray it with water?

I don't really know about water... I think a large magnet would be your best bet. I would imagine spraying the circuit board with "dirty"(would would conduct electricity well) water would be bad, but ive never tried something like that, lol.

 

[whyme2]

You could try damaging/destroying some of the exposed circuit board on the hard drive itself. If someone really wants to get information, this will not stop them, or slow them down very much. However, if they are just trying to rebuild a pc, they should only see a bad hard drive. You could also try and short the entire hd, but with no way to test it, not sure if that is feasible. Good luck
PS - Good strong magnet is definitely the way to go.

 

[O'Doyle Rules]

thanks bros, so open the back, remove hard drive, use magnet, scratch up circuit board
it wont be no big deal to owner, just will say not worth the trouble and toss it

thanks for the help

 

[Papulz]

how about this.. you tell your roommate you need to clear the data from the drive? then.... you clear the data of the drive? have a friend help if need be... OTHERWISE.. you can destroy it.. there have been plenty of methods listed.

i was kiddin with you bud, take it easy tiger.

 

[VanillaGueriila]

for water to do anything you would have to have power running through it. Water itself does not ruin electronics, it short the circuits. If the hdd has time to dry out before being used water wont help at all.