R.I.P. Scout26
...a Wasserman Schultz Aide...
Open drive, remove platters, apply electric sander to ENTIRE surface of BOTH sides of ALL platters, cut platters into quarters, throw in a roaring HOT fire, then you MIGHT be fairly safe.
Pfft. You do things the hard way. Thermite.
Throw them in a lake. Gone. Throw them out the window on a long country drive down random roads. Gone.
When I've gotten rid of an old PC and removed the hard drives for disposal, I've sanded the disc surfaces with a belt sander, pounded them with a hammer, and then cut them into wedges. Now I'm worried that someone may find the pieces in a landfill and reconstitute the data since I didn't melt them down with a blowtorch. At work, physical damage to a company PC would be frowned on, so I've used a utility (BCWipe) to overwrite data files and free space multiple times with random 1s and 0s before giving up the old PC.
Throw the pieces in separate trash bags. Take a few to trash cans at other locations.
FWIW there are 4 drives in that picture. I saved up until I had reason to mix a good sized batch. That $40 or so in materials will keep you in drive destruction for a decade of normal person use.
I'm pretty sure normal people get rid of their old hard drives by selling the whole computer on Craig's List, or donating it to Goodwill.
I recently sold an older notebook computer in Craigs List. With a functioning hard drive in it.First I ran a D.O.D. wipe program, then I did a pave-over and factory restore of the operating system. Does that make me normal, abnormal, or paranormal?