How do you destroy aluminum hard drive platters?

Perhaps one of the fastest and most direct methods of destroying the platter in a hard drive is to bash it with a hammer. Platters are generally made out of glass or ceramic and will easily shatter. Others are made from metal and a good hammering will make them unusable.

How do you destroy a solid state hard drive?

Due to the way SSDs are constructed, attempts to destroy an SSD with a magnet or drilling holes into the chips can still leave data intact. “It’s best to thoroughly destroy them with a hammer so all of the memory chips contained within are pulverized,” Bischoff noted.

Will a strong magnet erase a solid state hard drive?

Degaussing—applying a very strong magnet—has been an accepted method for erasing data off of magnetic media like spinning hard drives for decades. But it doesn’t work on SSDs. SSDs don’t store data magnetically, so applying a strong magnetic field won’t do anything.

Do magnets erase hard drives?

Magnets don’t destroy data. The CNN article included an interview with a company that placed large magnets on either side of a running hard drive, but the files on the drive remained 100\% intact.

How to completely wipe a computer hard drive?

Summary 1 Method 1: Completely wipe computer HDD by resetting your PC. 2 Method 2: Wipe a hard drive using free disk eraser – DiskGenius Free Edition. 3 Method 3: Clean PC hard drive by physically destroying it. It’s common to most users to sell or give away computer or… More

What is the best hard drive wipe software for Windows 10?

Top 10 Hard Drive/Disk Data Wipe/Erase Software for Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP. 1 #1 MiniTool Partition Wizard. MiniTool Partition Wizard is an all-in-one disk partition manager. It combines many powerful functions into one tool, e. 2 #2 DBAN. 3 #3 Disk Wipe. 4 #4 KillDisk. 5 #5 CCleaner.

Should I back up my data before wiping my computer?

Before you wipe your computer’s hard drive or do a factory reset, make sure to back up all of your information to your new computer, an external hard drive, or a web service. Backing up your data regularly is a smart way to keep your data safe.

What to do if the power goes out during disk clearing?

If power goes out during disk clearing, it might spell disaster to the drive. Backup your data to a different hard disk. When you wipe your computer, everything on it will be lost, thus you should back up any files you want to keep to another hard drive. You can clone hard drive or just copy & paste files to that disk.