I have a couple of old laptops lying around and want to throw them away, but have been cautious to do so because of privacy concerns of data still on the hard drives. What is the best way to wipe them? Or should I take them out and physically destroy them?

They are running windows vista and 10 I think.

  • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
    40·
    10 months ago

    I like to take the hard drive(s) out and either drill holes in them or beat them to pieces with a big hammer.

    Dear old Dad worked in IT, and he had a clearly marked “hard drive eraser”. It was a 20 pound sledgehammer.

    • const_void@lemmy.ml
      2·
      10 months ago

      Doesn’t that still leave most of the data on it? You don’t even bother erasing the drive first?

      • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
        1·
        10 months ago

        I don’t see how much data can be recovered from broken, bent pieces. If you’re really concerned, you can use a torch to raise a magnetic platter until it glows, this raises it above it’s curie temperature so all the magnetic particles stop being magnetic.