Your personal information is at risk of being stolen every day. Identity theft is a problem that has affected many individuals. So it critical that you secure erase hard drive disks before disposing of them or giving them away. There are several ways to do this.
The easiest option is obliterating the device using a heavy blunt object like a hammer. Be smart about it and with a few sharp blows, the case should break open. With the integrity of the case compromised, the disk is useless and your data is safe.
Using high power magnets, you can swipe them across the drive and scatter the bits of data so that the drive becomes unusable. Make sure the magnets are powerful enough to scramble the data. You should swipe several times and then hold the magnet flush to the case. Do this several times.
If the device is going to be used again by another user, then destruction is obviously not the solution. You will have to choose from one of two different ways. Formatting and wiping, also called 'scrubbing', are the most common techniques.
To format the disk, you simply right click on the corresponding device and select format. The disk is then erased. A warning message prior to the process warns that all disk data will be erased.
The format option does come with a caveat. It is not 100% secure against thieves. A computer specialist with the proper know how can easily recover data from the disk. The reason is that only the address tables are removed from the disk, which makes it difficult but not impossible to recover data.
The other option is to 'scrub' the disk. There are many software programs available for scrubbing HDDs. Typically, they overwrite all data on the disk and have various levels of security. The highest level is Department of Defense (DoD) which erases data to meet the requirements of the United States military.
Hopefully data thieves will never get your information. Now you know what needs to be done to secure erase hard drive disks on your computer. You can never be too careful.
The easiest option is obliterating the device using a heavy blunt object like a hammer. Be smart about it and with a few sharp blows, the case should break open. With the integrity of the case compromised, the disk is useless and your data is safe.
Using high power magnets, you can swipe them across the drive and scatter the bits of data so that the drive becomes unusable. Make sure the magnets are powerful enough to scramble the data. You should swipe several times and then hold the magnet flush to the case. Do this several times.
If the device is going to be used again by another user, then destruction is obviously not the solution. You will have to choose from one of two different ways. Formatting and wiping, also called 'scrubbing', are the most common techniques.
To format the disk, you simply right click on the corresponding device and select format. The disk is then erased. A warning message prior to the process warns that all disk data will be erased.
The format option does come with a caveat. It is not 100% secure against thieves. A computer specialist with the proper know how can easily recover data from the disk. The reason is that only the address tables are removed from the disk, which makes it difficult but not impossible to recover data.
The other option is to 'scrub' the disk. There are many software programs available for scrubbing HDDs. Typically, they overwrite all data on the disk and have various levels of security. The highest level is Department of Defense (DoD) which erases data to meet the requirements of the United States military.
Hopefully data thieves will never get your information. Now you know what needs to be done to secure erase hard drive disks on your computer. You can never be too careful.
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