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Firstly, I want to apologize for taking so long to write up another post. Needless to say, I certainly have not been waisting time, and the Science Quarterly publication that gets nearer every second.
Last post explored the basics of RAM, and so it is only logical to move onto the hard drive (a.k.a. hard disk) that lives inside your computer.
The hard drive stores all of the data on your computer, making it one of the most important parts of your PC or MAC. Your firewall protects it from infiltration, and just about everything you do on your computer is recorded and put onto your hard drive. This is why recovering the hard disk is such an important task when your computer crashes. All of your personal data is stored onto a "doughnut from the future": a small and thick mirror-like disk. If you want, you may go back to the Xbox dissection and read up on the destruction of the gaming device's hard drive.
This is very important, so pay attention:
When you get rid of a computer (i.e. throw away, give away, etc.) remove the hard drive and destroy it! An intact hard drive is a holy grail for all dumpster divers. It does not matter if all of your files have been deleted, they can be recovered through new software that can be purchased over-the-counter.
Destroying it is not a complex task, on the contrary, it can be very fun. The absolute best way is to ensure your safety it to melt it down into a little ball (or army man), however most of us don't have access to 2,000 + degrees of heat. An old fashioned hammer will do the trick, so will a rock, piece of wood, or just about any thing else. There is literally an unlimited number of ways to destroy your hard drive (all of them pretty cool).
This is the perfect application for a dremel tool. Next time I have a hard drive I want to destroy, I'm going to sand it with my dremel and cut it to pieces so I have more dremel experience under my belt.
Be sure to let me know the creative ways you've made up to destroy your hard disk!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Exploring Hard Drives- Inside your computer
Posted by Brennon at 3:46 PM
Labels: computer science
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3 comments:
Thank you for the update. You are so helpful about this subject because I do not know computers very well! I will probably use a hammer to destroy my hard drive. Can I throw it away after I hammer it to death? So after I destroy my hard drive, I can donate my computer and there will be no personal information on it?
Absolutely, You can throw it away. Just make sure the mirror-like disk is as annihilated, even damage information can still be extracted. You may then donate it in peace, a very good decision.
I did not realize how much information was retained on the hard drive, regardless of deletions. Thanks for your info. on this.
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