How to completely destroy multiple hard drives?

Networking/Security Forums -> Computer Forensics and Incident Response

Author: CArmstrongLocation: Seattle, WA PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 12:13 am    Post subject: How to completely destroy multiple hard drives?
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I have several (about a dozen) hard drives that I need completely destroyed - the data on them is vital to some companies and it needs destroyed completely. Some of the drives don't work properly but the data is still recoverable by those expert companies, so any software solutions won't work. I've already tried drilling holes in the platters and throwing the drives in hot fires but I need something more efficient. The only idea I have left is some sort of super magnet, but I'm not sure how to go about getting my hands on one (apart from going to the medical school and throwing a few in an MRI machine). Does anyone have any ideas? How do larger companies and government organizations dispose of drives that no longer spin up?

Thanks guys.

Author: capiLocation: Portugal PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 3:34 am    Post subject:
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If the data really is that important, and you want to be absolutely sure that it's physically impossible to recover any data whatsoever, melt the platters - literally, as in to a liquid state.

Author: White ScorpionLocation: The Netherlands PostPosted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 3:41 pm    Post subject:
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What I usually do with such a harddisk is drop it in the freezer for a few hours.
After that I take it out and drop it on the floor with as much strength as possible.
This will cause the platters to break in a thousand pieces Wink

Author: The_Real_GandalfLocation: Athens,Greece PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 4:27 pm    Post subject:
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Capi and White Scoprion , do have a point.

The only sure way of making sure of a secure data wipe on drives, is to physicaly destroy the drives in high temperature of by crashing the platters.

By doing in both ways, data wont be recoverable under any circumstance.

If however you need something not so "brutal" or maybe you want to use some parts of those disks as spares, then you can use some very electro-magnetic sources to erase all data on the disks. Usually some industrial magnetic equipments will do the job.

But, there is still a minor chance of someone getting a tinny piece of data on them , if he has access to some really fancy tools ,not available for commercial use.

So , if you are dead sure that you want all data wiped out completely from the face of this earth Very Happy , then destroy them in fire or smash them down.


Gandalf

Author: PhiBerLocation: Your MBR PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:27 pm    Post subject:
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In my opinion, its not worth the effort to try and destroy them yourself. Use a local monitored recycling and data destruction service to have the job done for you.

You can also encrypt the entire drive with something like TrueCrypt 5.0 (which implements entire system encryption) prior to drive destruction and lose the key!

Or, if you couldn't afford a recycling service, encryt the hard drive + destroy them with a hammer or with some of the solutions already mentioned. If someone is willing to try and extract data from such an application of destruction, you have bigger things to worry about than losing data! Shocked

Author: capiLocation: Portugal PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:31 pm    Post subject:
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PhiBer wrote:
In my opinion, its not worth the effort to try and destroy them yourself. Use a local monitored recycling and data destruction service to have the job done for you.

That may be a good solution, depending on the threat level and whether or not they're willing to trust the data destruction company.


PhiBer wrote:
You can also encrypt the entire drive with something like TrueCrypt 5.0 (which implements entire system encryption) prior to drive destruction and lose the key!

CArmstrong wrote:
Some of the drives don't work properly but the data is still recoverable by those expert companies, so any software solutions won't work.


Even if the drives were fully functional, if the data is really very valuable, software methods alone will not suffice (cf. Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory).

To completely eliminate any magnetic properties the platter material had, a phase transition (e.g. from solid to liquid) is required. Heating the platters to a specific temperature called the Curie point should suffice, but exactly which temperature is required will depend on the materials used. Actually melting the platters is easier to verify and will achieve the same purpose. Hard disk platters normally use aluminum as their substrate; it shouldn't be too hard to reach the melting point using tools such as a welding torch or an appropriate furnace. See http://driveslag.eecue.com for an illustrated example.

Author: PhiBerLocation: Your MBR PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:44 am    Post subject:
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Quote:

That may be a good solution, depending on the threat level and whether or not they're willing to trust the data destruction company.


I agree with you Capi, that is why I suggested a monitored solution where you are present at the facility to verify the destruction process.

Quote:

Even if the drives were fully functional, if the data is really very valuable, software methods alone will not suffice (cf. Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory).


Quote:
The recovery of at least one or two layers of overwritten data isn't too hard to perform by reading the signal from the analog head electronics with a high-quality digital sampling oscilloscope, downloading the sampled waveform to a PC, and analysing it in software to recover the previously recorded signal. What the software does is generate an "ideal" read signal and subtract it from what was actually read, leaving as the difference the remnant of the previous signal. Since the analog circuitry in a commercial hard drive is nowhere near the quality of the circuitry in the oscilloscope used to sample the signal, the ability exists to recover a lot of extra information which isn't exploited by the hard drive electronics (although with newer channel coding techniques such as PRML (explained further on) which require extensive amounts of signal processing, the use of simple tools such as an oscilloscope to directly recover the data is no longer possible).


TrueCrypt offers the ability to wipe the drive with multiple passes making it more difficult to extract data. This in conjunction with drilling holes in the drives / using a sledgehammer should make it infeasible to attempt to recover the data (although from a purely theoretical perspective not impossible).

Quote:
To completely eliminate any magnetic properties the platter material had, a phase transition (e.g. from solid to liquid) is required. Heating the platters to a specific temperature called the Curie point should suffice, but exactly which temperature is required will depend on the materials used. Actually melting the platters is easier to verify and will achieve the same purpose. Hard disk platters normally use aluminum as their substrate; it shouldn't be too hard to reach the melting point using tools such as a welding torch or an appropriate furnace. See http://driveslag.eecue.com for an illustrated example.


Not a great corporate or efficient solution that Mr. Armstrong is looking for, but should work. Wink

Author: CArmstrongLocation: Seattle, WA PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 1:06 am    Post subject:
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Wow, thanks for all the information guys! I knew you would be the folks to ask. Let me go into a little more detail. The information on the drives isn't super-secret. Throughout the years, whenever I would do work for a company and they would get a new computer, they'd give me the old drives to destroy however I'd see fit. I wiped them at the software level, but wasn't sure how to best destroy them so I just kept them. Now I've amassed quite a collection of older drives - some working, some not. Like I said before I tried burning them and smashing them, but I figured there was a more efficient way to destroy them. After your responses, I'm sure there's not (at least not a solution

Once of those shredding machines or data destruction services would be simply awesome, but I have an extremely small budget here. I don't think the importance of the data would warrant paying for such services. I just wanted a solution that would make it realistically impractical to attempt to extract the data off of the drives. I tried freezing the drives and smashing them like it was mentioned earlier, but the platters were absolutely fine - no shredding. I resorted to holding a few drives in a vice and bending them to a 90 degree angle with a sledgehammer, but after 2 or 3 drives I realized how long it would take me. I destroyed a few drives but still have quite a few left.

I'm playing around with a few more ideas, but you guys reassured me that there's not some "easy button" to press when doing this sort of thing. Thanks for all the advice everyone - again, I really appreciate it!

Author: EarthandAllStars PostPosted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:35 pm    Post subject:
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If these drives aren't NSA level of security use a good disk wiping program and then drill some holes through them. The only way to be sure is to melt them, but that is so much work. Only someone with a lot of time, energy and the right equipment will be able to recover data off from a HD which has two or three holes drilled through it.

Author: The_Real_GandalfLocation: Athens,Greece PostPosted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 1:45 pm    Post subject:
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as said if the data on those drives are not characterized as "secret-top secret" level then most of the wipping programs out there will do.

The idea is that no commercial product can recover a "sanitized" drive. You will need some exotic tools for this to happen and good enough skills on recompiling binary/hexadecimal code to do something on those drives as to recoder wipped data from them.

According to SANS the only safe way to characterize data as "not recoverable" is to physical destroy the data container (HDD/CD/DVD/USB) so there is no way for someone to rebuild the data sequence stored on it.

Gandalf

Author: D1g1t PostPosted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 5:57 pm    Post subject:
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5 Ways To Destroy Your Hard Drive

hope it helps Smile



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