Erasing Data on a Dead Hard Drive
 

Well, my parent's hard drive finally took a dump, and although I always told them, don't save any credit card or passwords, etc, on a hard drive, in case if fails they did. And some other data we'd rather not get out, into a criminals, or normal persons hands (No, not hand pr0n). But in all seriousness...

I hit up Seagate and we have a 5 year "limited" warranty, and our drive IS covered by the warranty.

HOWEVER, I do know how to format, and tri-format and whatnot, but this drive has imploded... It won't get recognized, at ALL!

Through BIOS, through an enclosure, through a SATA -> IDE -> USB and everything else.

When I try booting off of it, or WITH it, the BIOS will not go through, so it doesn't past P.O.S.T.....

Before we send it in to get a new hard drive warrantied, I want to get this stuff off the disc, and deem it even more useless, because who knows what Seagate can pull out of their.... mouth.... and to find the credit card, password, and such information.

Any advice?

I've heard passing a magnet over would work (well, it's a myth), but I've also read that it doesn't do anything at all...

BTW: I'd like to keep the hard drive in one piece, without voiding the warranty, and also, it's a SATA drive.

huge magnet.. trying to hide all the naked photos of linc and harold?

Where can I pick up such a huge magnet?
We have a couple of those extra large welding magnets... But that's about it..

And yeah..... but don't tell anyone

Ah, I read and saw those Darik's Nuke program, but I can't use it considering it isn't recognized, at all.

And 4chan...

Most.
Epic.
Conversation.
Ever.

Just write all 1's, then all 0's to the whole drive. Repeat a few times.

Could also download the low-level format utility from the drive maker (if you can find it).

Or, if you want to totally destroy it, remove the platters and use them for target practice. :smile:

It won't get recognized in BIOS, at all....

Big F@#$ing Hammer

12 ton press works better, i know from expirience

Would a microwave work? :lol: Why don't you call Seagate again and ask them how to go about it without voiding the warranty.

If you want to send it in on warranty, and it's not recognized in the BIOS, you're out of options. Either send it in and hope they destroy it, or just buy a new one.

I don't think it will be an issue sending it to Seagate as is. They probably get thousands of drive in a day for repair. Probably have a much higher chance of your info getting stolen another way than that. There are services that can recover your data but again you'll have to trust them.

Gah, I think I'm gonna try the carpet, magnet, and something else if I can think of something..

Basically, I'm gonna tack on as many magnets as I can, strong and weak. Leave it for a week, and every day of the week, move the magnets for a good 3-5 minutes, then once the magnet treatment is done, take it on a grand tour of my house (which is all carpet), PCB facing down, then another week, magnets on the other side, and the PCB facing up, and carpet it again.

Sounds like it'd just be a great big hard drive of fun when they try and recover it...
We'll see I guess..

That's what I did w/mine..problem solved