Hard Drive Destruction Myths Debunked

Think hard drive destruction is as easy as using a magnet? Think again.

So you have a hard drive that needs to be destroyed, but you’re not sure how to go about it.  There are a lot of myths out there on how to do it yourself, but this is not a job you want to leave to some Pinterest ideas.  If you think erasing data is as easy as taking an over-sized magnet to the drive itself, think again.  Hard drive destruction is a little bit more involved.  Here are some of the common myths regarding hard drive destruction.

Data can’t be recovered after a drive is formatted.

This is simply untrue. If you know what you’re doing, you can easily retrieve data from a reformatted hard drive.  All it takes is some specialized software and a desire to get the data off the computer.  This is not a job that requires an expert hacker, either.  Data recovery software is designed so that anyone can easily access data that was once believed to be lost.  For this reason, don’t rely on a simple hard drive format to protect yourself.  Someone else can still get the information.

Degaussing is 100% fool-proof.

While degaussing is great for removal of audio, video and data signals from the magnetic storage, it’s still not 100% fool-proof.  It can only be used on magnetic media, and there is no way to guarantee that a particular degaussing machine is strong enough to destroy all the data on every hard drive.  

An old hard drive can’t be taken advantage of by new technology.

Just because a hard drive is old, it doesn’t mean it’s inaccessible.  Data thieves are very skilled at what they do, and will stop at nothing to make sure they can get the information they want.  An old hard drive can still be accessed using a variety of tools, so don’t assume legacy = safe.

Hard Drive Destruction: The Truth

The best and most secure method of rendering hard drive information completely unusable is to completely destroy it through hard drive shredding.  This is something that is best left to the experts, as it’s the only way to ensure that the hard drive is completely unusable.  Hard drive shredding works similarly to how paper documents are destroyed, except it is the hard drive that is being shredded into pieces that are unable to be recovered.

Don’t take any guesses when it comes to getting rid of your old hard drives.  For hard drive disposal, consider hard drive shredding services that can offer complete and total destruction.

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Hard Drive Destruction Myths Debunked

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