Shooting At Computer Hard Drives

[billt460]

I have had several old desktop computers languishing in my closet for years. One was so old it had Windows 95 in it. Finally my wife wanted rid of them because they were taking up too much space. I didn't want to toss them for fear someone could take the hard drive out and retrieve the information. So I took them out on the patio, pulled them apart, and removed the hard drives.

The other day I took them to the range, along with my Ruger Model 77 Stainless in .30-06. I set them out on a berm at 75 yards, and had at them. The results were all similar to this one. These things are really tough! They're made from a very heavy cast Aluminum housing. The Western Digital models like the one in the photos seem to be the toughest. But the 168 Gr. Sierra Matchking sailed right through, no problem.

The first shot hit just to the left of center, right under the bar code. The next one nicked the edge, but as you can see in the other photo, it blew the whole upper left corner of the housing completely off, exposing the platter and arm. It landed on edge, so I put one edgewise into the right side, and that pretty much finished it off. That last shot blew the unit right over the top of the berm, and I found it about 30 feet on the other side of the berm itself.

The other hard drives all met with a similar fate. It was fun to be able to shoot at something other than paper all the time. And I doubt that anyone will be extracting any information off of them now!

[smokeless joe]

I never thought of doing that. I've discarded a few computers and laptops over the years and manually destroyed the hard drives. I can't wait to do my current laptop that way 

[bearcatter]

There are some amazingly strong little magnets in hard drives. I have a few in my main toolbox.

[OV-1D]

  I'd pay to take some shots . I got a running one that's starting to catch my eye , 12 gauge double odd buck should make it scream while departing is tech-crap world , then one to the head with a 50 cal. maybe two to make real sure . Oh I have a cell phone I haven't used in a couple of years , that should take a few dozen 22 bird shots to eliminate its talking back , ha . It will be glorious and very self satisfying .

[Warthog]

I try to take the magnets out of them before I shoot them.  They are rare earth magnets and really strong so if you feel like playing with them keep your fingers away from them or they can take a finger off your hand.  I have used them to hide a ini under the desk of my computer so they are there and easy to grab if my home is intruded upon, they make great magnets for the fridge too, you can put lots of stuff on them and they hold.

[1858Fan]

I try to take the magnets out of them before I shoot them.  They are rare earth magnets and really strong so if you feel like playing with them keep your fingers away from them or they can take a finger off your hand.  I have used them to hide a ini under the desk of my computer so they are there and easy to grab if my home is intruded upon, they make great magnets for the fridge too, you can put lots of stuff on them and they hold.

I was going to make the exact same recommendation but you beat me to it. I have a pretty good collection of neodymium magnets on my fridge from hard drives that have been decommissioned over the years. Those things are wicked strong. 

[linux_author]

should have turned the drive sideways! LOL!

[To Old To Run]

I've done a few autopsies on dead computers myself, removing the hard drive .
I might just have to try this one myself, sounds like fun

[Bigbird48]

Shooting the hard drive will not make it so info can not be gotten from them. Someone with determination csn still get info off them. If I saw a drive with bullet holes my first thought would be this person doesn't want their info disclosed and maybe theres some info there worth getting.I would be all the more curious to see what you were hiding. A much better way is to wipe your hard drives and then reformat that drive. Theres a lot of info on the web telling you how to do this, once done no ones going to get that info. Then take them out for target practice 

[billmeek]

A much better way is to wipe your hard drives and then reformat that drive.

A wipe and format can still be recoverable.  You need to use a utility that over-writes the data multiple times.  A free utility that supports DOD specifications is DBAN:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/

Unless you need to destroy all data on a disk, I don't recommend downloading/using this program.

[RogueTS1]

A powerful magnet would work and failing that a close cut wood chipper/metal chipper will get the job done. 

[Bigbird48]

A much better way is to wipe your hard drives and then reformat that drive.

A wipe and format can still be recoverable.  You need to use a utility that over-writes the data multiple times.  A free utility that supports DOD specifications is DBAN:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/

Unless you need to destroy all data on a disk, I don't recommend downloading/using this program.

Disk Wiping Options (aka. Data Dump)

Even more secure than reformatting is a process called disk wiping (or disk scrubbing). The term disk wiping is not only used in reference to hard drives but any storage device such as CDs, RAIDs, flash drives and other storage devices.

Disk wiping is a secure method of ensuring that data, including company and individually licensed software on your computer and storage devices is irrecoverably deleted before recycling or donating the equipment. Because previously stored data can be brought back with the right software and applications, the disk wiping process will actually overwrite your entire hard drive with data, several times. Once you format you'll find it all but impossible to retrieve the data which was on the drive before the overwrite.

While disk wiping algorithms differ from product to product, they all will generally write the entire disk with a number (zero or one), then a reformat will be needed. The more times the disk is overwritten and formatted the more secure the disk wipe is, but the trade-off is the extra time to perform additional rewrites. Disk wipe applications will typically overwrite the master boot record (MBR), partition table, and every sector of the hard drive.

[billmeek]

There are a lot of "security tools" that only do a single pass on overwriting data on a disk.  That's why I specified that you need to use a utility that does multiple passes.  There are many good tools available.  I mentioned DBAN because is free, open-source, and works well. 

[billt460]

There are a lot of "security tools" that only do a single pass on overwriting data on a disk.  That's why I specified that you need to use a utility that does multiple passes.  There are many good tools available.  I mentioned DBAN because is free, open-source, and works well.

I remember watching a show on police computer forensics. The guy on the show was in charge of a large Police Computer Forensic Lab in a major metropolitan police department. He went on to say all of those programs that, "rewrite" the hard drive with, "zeros or one's" are completely worthless. He said most all prisons have inmates who will testify to the fact of just how well they all work.

He said the only way you can be sure to completely erase a hard drive, is to place it on a rock, and smash it to pieces with a sledge hammer. In my case, employing  high velocity projectiles was both less strenuous, and a lot more fun.

[Uncle_Lee]

hillary's crew used hammers on some electronics.

[billmeek]

I remember watching a show on police computer forensics. The guy on the show was in charge of a large Police Computer Forensic Lab in a major metropolitan police department. He went on to say all of those programs that, "rewrite" the hard drive with, "zeros or one's" are completely worthless. He said most all prisons have inmates who will testify to the fact of just how well they all work.

That may have been the case with old MFM drives, but any modern hard drive is virtually impossible to recover data after several passes of overwrites.  Take a drive with data, do a DoD 5220.22-M wipe, send it to any recovery company (i.e. Seagate Recovery) and they will not be able to recover the data.

NSA Advisory LAA-006-2004 states that a single pass with DoD 5220.22-M renders the data unrecoverable.

[billt460]

That may have been the case with old MFM drives, but any modern hard drive is virtually impossible to recover data after several passes of overwrites.  Take a drive with data, do a DoD 5220.22-M wipe, send it to any recovery company (i.e. Seagate Recovery) and they will not be able to recover the data. NSA Advisory LAA-006-2004 states that a single pass with DoD 5220.22-M renders the data unrecoverable.

I still feel better when they look like the one above.

[1858Fan]

Shooting the hard drive will not make it so info can not be gotten from them. Someone with determination csn still get info off them. If I saw a drive with bullet holes my first thought would be this person doesn't want their info disclosed and maybe theres some info there worth getting.I would be all the more curious to see what you were hiding. A much better way is to wipe your hard drives and then reformat that drive. Theres a lot of info on the web telling you how to do this, once done no ones going to get that info. Then take them out for target practice 

If a round goes through all of the platters I believe even a government adversary would have a VERY difficult time getting anything off of it. I remember one computer class a million years ago showing how big a smoke particle is in relation to the clearance between the read heads and the platters on a hard drive. Once those platters have been shot not only are they covered in debris that would be massive by comparison, they are also no longer anywhere close to being true and flat.

I would feel VERY comfortable discarding platters that had a rifle round fired through them unless I was a dignitary of a foreign government destroying national secrets that I knew people were after.

[OV-1D]

Shooting the hard drive will not make it so info can not be gotten from them. Someone with determination csn still get info off them. If I saw a drive with bullet holes my first thought would be this person doesn't want their info disclosed and maybe theres some info there worth getting.I would be all the more curious to see what you were hiding. A much better way is to wipe your hard drives and then reformat that drive. Theres a lot of info on the web telling you how to do this, once done no ones going to get that info. Then take them out for target practice 

How about after shooting the devil out of it we send the rest of it to heii with a gallon of gasoline , that should take of any hard drives ..

[billt460]

Shooting the hard drive will not make it so info can not be gotten from them.

I would love to see an actual case that supports that statement.

[Warthog]

Well, in theory they could scan all around the hoe and try to recover what was still there on the platter.  It would take a long time and a very good person to run the controls plus be able to rebuild what they were able to recover.  I am not positive, but it would seem you would have to be someone like Osama Bin Laden (dead) to have the government want to know what your hard drive said that bad.

[LHB]

It is my understanding that a hard drive has a several platters, and the way a hard drive works is to put some info into one sector, then jump to the nest sector, but on the next lower disk, then to the next sector on the next lower disk, until the bottom disk is reached, then back to the top disk, etc.  The info is not all on one disk, and remember back in the 90's, with the first pcs, when you had to lock a drive before you moved it to keep from damaging the disks.

[billt460]

One does not have to be tech savvy to apply common sense to this situation. Computer programs add information to hard drives. What are you going to trust to be more effective at permanently removing the same said information? Another electronic computer program...... Or, bullets and sledge hammers?

[OV-1D]

   O.K. Lets just "NUKE IT" till it GLOWS hows that .

[Canoeal]

Just toss them in a hot campfire...

[Ruger]

I've dropped a few items (hard drives & flash drives) into a glass container of muriatic acid.  Don't know if it did any damage, but to agree with AL, after dropping them into our campfire after the acid bath made me feel a lot better.  Good luck finding them where I buried them on the acreage.  I'll be dead by the time anybody digs them up and all my money will have been well spent.

[OV-1D]

  Thousands of years in the future some AI will dig them up thinking they are some ancient ancestors , Ha Ha .

[autofull]

i always enjoyed shooting old porcelin covered appliances. the sound between shots of it peeling off was way cool. ahh, just my memories and perhaps yours as well.

[Canoeal]

  Thousands of years in the future some AI will dig them up thinking they are some ancient ancestors , Ha Ha .

Funny how in this text AI looks an awful lot Like Al...

[Warthog]

When I read this I too thought it said AL.

[redhawk4]

I never thought of doing that. I've discarded a few computers and laptops over the years and manually destroyed the hard drives. I can't wait to do my current laptop that way 

Is that you Hillary? 

[smokeless joe]

I never thought of doing that. I've discarded a few computers and laptops over the years and manually destroyed the hard drives. I can't wait to do my current laptop that way 

Is that you Hillary? 

Not even close   

[Warthog]

she wasn't smart enough to destroy hers.....

[smokeless joe]

she wasn't smart enough to destroy hers.....

She tried