How do I destroy a computer hard drive before recycling?

wipe it with a magnet then drill holes in it or smash it

Hard drive destroyers/crushers are capable of physically destroying various media, including hard drives, CDs/DVDs, cell phones, and floppy disks, ensuring that the data on the media is completely unreadable. Our fast & reliable solutions are ideal for environment-friendly and low-cost media disposal, parts recycling and data loss prevention.

Please follow the following for recycling your system.

1.) grab your windows disc and 1/2 run the install
2.) once at the screen were you can format your hard drive do so
3.) find local electronics drop off center or contact LIve-Tech

I personal and willing to work with you to destroy your data and properly have your system recycled.

Live-Tech will take hardware in refurbise what is good and donate it to families with children in need.Anything not usable will be sent to local disposal centers to be properly broken down and recycled

Thanks
Frank
Live-Tech
http://www.mylive-tech.com
1-888-361-8511

If your hard drive is too full, then your computer is going to perform slower. Delete old files which are not required.

Remove programs that you are no longer using. Delete temporary files.

Empty your recycle bin. Right click on Recycle Bin. Click Empty Recycle Bin>Yes.

Run an error check on your computer. The error check can remove errors that slow down your computer. If you are using Windows, you can do this by clicking Start>My Computer. Right click on your hard drive (typically c:) and then select Properties. Click the Tools tab>Check Now and then Start.

Clean up your registry. You can purchase software that will fix any registry errors on your computer.

Perform this computer maintenance on a weekly basis.

Open the two sides . Remove the wiring frm the hard driver. Remove the hard drive from the cage.

If you look at the motherboard you should see a plastic strip with black squares on it sticking up from the motherboard about 4 inches long. Often in older models the memory cards were at a slant. Either way there are 2-4 slots populated with 1 to 4 of these green plastic strips. Just pop them out. They may have little clips on each end that you have to depress to get them out of the slots. Hope this helps.

You own a computer and then purchased a new one. After moving all of your important data to the new computer and deciding to sell or donate the old computer you are faced with the question of deleting the data or destroying the hard drive. One one hand, if you delete the data and reinstall the operating system the next owner can quickly use the computer. If you destroy the hard drive, another drive would have to be installed for the computer to be useful again. 
What if the hard drive lands into the wrong hands? Your tax return, financial records, intimate photos, and more could be used against you. 

With the 2007 NBA Playoffs on TV this month, an interesting connection has arose. It seems the San Antonio Spurs guard, Bruce Bowen, and his wife have filed a lawsuit against a local computer firm when their hard drive and data ended up on another person's computer. The recipient of the hard drive contacted Mr. Bowen and informed him of the breach of privacy. To read more about this incident visit the news article. As a computer consultant myself, I see a huge breach of computer privacy with this case and I foresee Mr. Bowen winning the lawsuit easily.  


Now what can you do to avoid a similar situation as Mr. Bowen's? First you have to decide if you want to permanently erase the data or destroy the drive. If you decide to permanently erase the data, you have several options. However let's go over what you DON'T want to do.
Don't just delete your data and empty the recycle bin
Don't just format the hard drive
Don't just format and reinstall Windows or another operating system
Why don't you want to do the above? It seems this would be enough to make sure your data isn't compromised.

Let's take a step back and understand how data is stored on a hard drive. When information is written to a drive, the location of the information is stored in a file that resembles a table of contents for a book, On computers running DOS and Windows operating systems, the File Allocation Table (FAT) or the Master File Table (MFT) holds this information. When a file is deleted, the FAT or MFT table is updated to tell the computer the space on the hard drive is available, however the actual data is not deleted until it is overwritten with new data. This is why you read about computer forensic teams, the FBI, and other law enforcement being able to recover data to solve crimes or incriminate individuals. Using software undelete tools, you can restore files that were accidentally or otherwise deleted. In more severe case, services such as Drive Savers are used to recover data that has been physically or electronically destroyed. 

Baring any of these extra efforts, you can use the procedures below to erase or destroy your data so the average individual won't be able to recover anything from your computer hard drive.

Using Wipe Utilities

In order to prevent data from being recovered, you should use data wiping software to completely erase the information to Department of Defense (DOD) standards. I recommend the following free tools to sanitize or wipe a hard drive of information:

Darik's Boot and Nuke - a program that can be booted from floppy or CD to completely erase a hard drive
Eraser by Heidi Computers Limited
Active@ KillDisk
If you plan on giving your computer away, selling it, or otherwise disposing of it, please destroy the data on it by using one of the above wiping utilities. 

Degaussing a Hard Drive

An extra step is to degauss the hard drive. Degaussing is a process whereby the magnetic media is erased using a reverse magnetic field to scramble the electronic data and make it unreadable. Unfortunately degaussing machines are rather expensive ($2000.00 or more) and are not realistic purchases for the average consumer. However, you can send your hard drive to a degaussing company like Garner Products or SEM and for a few dollars can have your hard drive completely degaussed and/or destroyed. If your data security is important enough, this is a wise step.

Physically Destroying a Hard Drive

Physically destroying a hard drive is by far the most effective method for the average person to ensure the safety of their data. However, please wear protective glasses and other gear if you decide to physically destroy a drive yourself. It can be a dangerous activity that I don't recommend to everyone. Also, as a precaution, wrap the hard drive in a towel so the parts don't fly off and do more damage.

Whether its smashing the hard drive with a sledgehammer, drilling holes into the drive, tearing the drive apart and destroying the platters, shredding the drive, or other methods your sensitive data will be safe. 

For the most security, I recommend doing as many of the above procedures (wiping the drive, degaussing it, and destroying it) as you can. If a drive is wiped, degaussed, and destroyed the chances of recovering the data is almost nil.

Conclusion

If a computer store, consultant, or other qualified computer tech tells you your hard drive is crashed and the data is unrecoverable, ask for them to return the original drive to you. This way you can physically destroy and dispose of the drive to your satisfaction and avoid situations like Mr. Bowen's where your data suddenly appears on someone else's computer screen.

I would take the hard drive out and destroy it if you do not need the data on it.Since it does not work, I would recycle the rest of the unit.

I’m happy to assist further over the phone at https://www.6ya.com/expert/joe_8b8c2cd6ce148309

Yes, all you information will be on the hard drives. The rest of the units can be recycled.

What I would do is take a screw driver a very small phillips, You can take it apart and remove the disks and destroy and break disks there just like a cd rom and then you can send the rest or it to be recycle at your nearest recycling plant that takes care of computer components. You can just put it back together and recycle it Please don't just throw it in the garbage, Toshiba has a place if you call the 800 number you can send the hole drive and they will destroy it for you, If you want to do that too. I would trust them that they would do so. I am sure if anything happened after that they would be responsible for it... I hope that helps you out...