Making a laptop safe for disposal

[User6179]

[QUOTE 4727190, member: 9609"]hard drive out, open case and remove magnets (hard drive magnets are amazing) grind the disk surface on both sides, then cut disk into quarters with angle grinder and bin off in four separate bins to four separate land fills.[/QUOTE]

How long were you in the CIA ?

 

[Markymark]

Yebbut, they also said that a CD would play perfectly of you drilled a 3mm hole in it. They got that wrong too.

It works really well with Coldplay CDs. You should try it.

 

[jefmcg]

A long time ago (80s) I had access to the NATO instructions for destroying magnetic media. Short version: Fire!

But that was for abandoning computers with enemy forces taking a command post. Thousands of lives and the results of a conflict could depend on that data being readable or not. A hypothetical dumpster diver who spends hundreds of hours recovering hard drives from the tip is going to die of starvation.
[QUOTE 4727626, member: 76"]Drop it off a cross channel ferry into the sea[/QUOTE]
I know this is humour, but please take your old computers to the recycling depot. The will leach poisons into the waterways, poisons that include rare earth minerals that we should be recycling.

 

[slowmotion]

[QUOTE 4727708, member: 9609"]Its impossible isn't it. that disk whizzing around at over a 10,000rpm and that little arm bouncing back and forward collecting 100 million pieces of info a second from incredibly precise locations. How much space on a disk does one byte occupy (in fractions of a sq mm) and that arm finds it and reads it at up to 100million x a second The whole process has to be impossible - it must be made up / fake - it can't possibly happen.[/QUOTE]
When I took apart the first HD, I felt overwhelmed with guilt for destroying such a beautiful piece of precision engineering. What do they sell for...£40 or something? You can only marvel at human ingenuity, and feel humbled by one's own pitiful efforts.

 

[Milkfloat]

 

[perplexed]

How do you dispose of an old laptop?
{snip}
Attacking it with a lump hammer didn't appeal, so I plonked it in the kitchen sink and submerged it in water for about 10 minutes.

During this process the pilot lights flickered for a few seconds then went off.

I reckon I can now sleep easy.

What do you do to a laptop to make it safe for disposal?

Emboldened bit.

You haven't seem Terminator 2 'Judgement Day' have you...

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

5 minutes in a microwave

 

[winjim]

It works really well with Coldplay CDs. You should try it.

For Coldplay CDs I usually use a 120mm hole.

 

[EltonFrog]

[QUOTE 4727254, member: 259"]Just bang a big nail through the hard drive.

And then nuke it from space and do a poo on it.[/QUOTE]

I think this post should given @Drago 's "Chuckle of the Day" award.

 

[Drago]

I've been given a new tablet, but ifnI can find the photo I'll reinstate the award.

 

[EltonFrog]

I've been given a new tablet, but ifnI can find the photo I'll reinstate the award.

Here it is

 

[Drago]

Mort wins the coveted Drago's Chuckle of the day award...

He now joins a club with a select membership of steely eyed square jawed go getters.

 

[mybike]

Next time, download a version of Linux and install it on the laptop.

And never put a battery in water, unless it is a burning lithium one.

 

[slowmotion]

[QUOTE 4728532, member: 9609"]they must be made of different stuff, I could sort of remember them bending like metal, but wasn't sure, so I took this one out and give it a go. The bit that did snap off I had to bend it back and forwards a few times. Its going to be a bugger to get it working again

Seriously though, would I be right in thinking that if enough money was thrown at the problem, could data still be extracted from this ?

View attachment 343213 [/QUOTE]
I think that if you mounted the Pringled disk in the workpiece holder of an 8 axis CNC machine, and the magnetic pickup in the machine's tool holder, you would be in with a pretty good chance.
[media]

]View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFkbZqGp0rY[/media]

 

[Piemaster]

[QUOTE 4728532, member: 9609"]they must be made of different stuff, I could sort of remember them bending like metal, but wasn't sure, so I took this one out and give it a go. The bit that did snap off I had to bend it back and forwards a few times. Its going to be a bugger to get it working again
[/QUOTE]
Think there were 3-4 platters, of something that was very brittle, maybe a ceramic material, certainly didn't bend like yours. It could have been a larger HDD from an older desktop, which may explain it.