How to kill my harddrive?

need help killing him

[Raymond]

Hi. I bought a Maxtor 120gig IDE HD on Monday. I made 3 partitions and I installed Windows 2003 server in C, and copied some very important files in D.

This morning the HD started to make this "ticking" sound. Shortly after that, I got the blue screen of error for file dumping and it just went dead. It didn't reboot, bios can see the drive, but it does not boot. It just keeps on making this "ticking" sound when booting (still in cmos). I tried to load the harddrive in another computer, again, bios sees it, but windows doesn't and makes that "ticking" sound.

If I bring this HD back to the store, they will give me another one. But the problem is, I am not sure how screwed up this drive is, and if someone somehow can load the drive and sees the files that are stored in D:, I might be in big trouble. Is there a way to safely but SURELY KILL all data on the harddrive (except for burning it, drowning it, hacking it...etc) before I exchange it for a new one?

Thanks.

[Receptional Andy]

Degaussing the drive would be the best option. You would need a specialist tool to do this though. Big magnets are another option ;)

[Raymond]

Thanks andy.

How big of a magnet, and to what degree of magnetizing it can I be sure of wiping out all data?

I think I can find some quite powerful rare earth magnets to use. Just need to know if this will really work for sure.

[Receptional Andy]

I'm afraid I don't know how effective magnets are likely to be. I assume a very powerful magnet would have some effect. I guess the problem is there's no way for you to verify the destruction of the data. If you absolutely must destroy the data then you really need to get hold of a degaussing machine/degaussing wand.

I tried to load the harddrive in another computer, again, bios sees it, but windows doesn't and makes that "ticking" sound.

It might be possible to run a low level disk utility on it via a boot disk. Might be worth a look before you start breaking out the electro magnets ;)

Have you asked the store if they have ay advice about this? If you could physically destroy the hard drive and still get a replacement that would be ideal (or if they have a degausser).

[Conard]

Could you install it as a slave drive and boot to the master?
Then try and format the slave or wipe it either one?

[Raymond]

Conard: I already did that. I set it as slave on another computer and it doesn't load. Any attempt to access the drive resulted in either "ticking", or CHKDSK that gets stucked at 0% forever.

Andy: Just tried that with a bootdisk. No luck.

I guess I'll have to keep the busted drive. Better be safe than sorry.

[Terabytes]

(Normally this is not recomended....keep that in mind...)

I have found roughly a 90% success rate with the following...on dead drives over the last 9 years...

the ticking sound you hear is a stuck head on the drive...

remove the drive from the computer, using the backend of a screwdriver (like a #2 Phillips), lightly tap on the drive. tap on the top, and the sides...not enough to damage it, but just enough to jar loose the stuck head...don't tap on the underside where the electronics are! You can't really hurt the drive at this point because it's already useless. However, you may be just able to bring it to life long enough to get your data off the drive...

however, this may cure the symptom to where you can't return the drive.

You know it's bad...but now you can't prove it, because it now boots...and no longer "ticks"

Don't trust this drive once you get it running, get your data, or delete whatever you need and then remove the drive...permanently...

It will fail again somewhere down the road....that's for sure...

Just my 2-cents
Tera

[kaled]

Many businesses store confidential data. I see no problem with
a) insisting the drive is replaced.
b) insisting the drive is either destroyed in your presence or handed to you instact.

Kaled.