Is there anything I can do to destroy a laptop hard drive?

[BertieBotts]

The situation is I am soon to be leaving my controlling partner. He is a computer technician and often is given people's old laptops as he recycles them for parts (he tells them it saves them the hassle of taking it to the electrical items dump at the tip) - the laptop I use was one of these, about 2 years ago, and is now on its last legs. So he has got a newer one which he has sorted out so that I can have it, and says he wants this one for work.

I have a feeling the first thing he is going to do is go through all my web history, documents, etc, to see what I have been up to. He is majorly jealous of the time I spend on mumsnet and other sites - and since I have been moaning about him on here etc I really don't want him to be able to do that. I know I can clear all my history and run CCleaner which will take care of that but I am worried that when I leave, he is going to run recovery software on it and try and dig up everything I have ever done on the computer. I have seen him do this for a client who had lost her University work - and among other files it came up with a load of naked pictures of her which he thought was great I know you can't just recover stuff selectively and it recovers everything. I think it also recovers files from before a computer was formatted - is this true?

I think I have seen software advertised which scrambles everything so that recovery software will not work - do these work? If not, is there a virus I can intentionally catch which will render the hard drive unusable? Or can I scratch it somehow without it being obvious straight away what I have done? I don't want to damage the entire laptop as that seems a waste to me, I just want to get rid of the hard drive (which is small and old anyway so pretty much worthless)

the easiest way is to open and run the computer and then drop it while it is on.

the hard drive is basically 2 discs that spin around when the computer is on.
if you drop the computer the discs will smash together and break.
this will not happen if you drop the computer when it's not on.

but if you really want to be sure, take the hard drive out of the machine and destroy it.
burn it or throw it away or run over it with your car.

you can replace a hard drive.
(but it's quite expensive if it's a laptop, so you might be better breaking it in situ and the n claiminga new computer on your home contents' insurance)

It has been dropped while on before - just off the coffee table - but that would be an option. DS has just learnt to climb the sofa so there could be an "accident" - I don't want him to be annoyed at DS though. He's only one so any reasonable person would see it wasn't his fault but I don't think "D"P would take it so lightly.

I would rather keep my MN posts in case I ever need to refer to them in the future - court etc - though I am hoping it won't come to that. I might namechange again though just to be sure. Although he is a technician he is clueless when it comes to forums/the internet. He googles things as a question and clicks on adverts because he can't tell the difference. His own laptop is riddled with spyware, I had to stop him logging into a bank phishing site once. So I am not so worried about that, but if he went through the history he could follow my tracks. Also I have written things out in documents and deleted them just to get it out of my head etc.

you can wipe a disk by putting it near a strong magnetic source.

Might be worth taking the disc out and taking it to a pc shop and asking them if they can wipe it for you. Tell them the disk is old and you want to get rid of it but want to make sure nothing risky can be recovered from it.

this might help

It's really hard to break the hard drive just by dropping it. They're made of metal, at worst they'll get scratched, but anyone techy would still be able to recover the data, or at least most of it. Complete destruction really is the only option!

yes -- my recovery happened after a violent drop

Hi there just wanted to second those who are saying that if he is 'clever' and determined enough he may well be able to recover things from a 'wiped' hard drive- our tecnician at work claims this is true and he also claims that it is possible (though illegal obviously) to work out peoples log-in and password info. Bear in mind his snooping could extend to getting hold of your log-in details and accessing your e-mails, bank account, mumsnet account etc etc.

He could also have put some software on the new laptop that allows him to view what you are doing, or which sends him reports of viewed sites.

I know it all sounds a bit space age and alarmist but our tecnician swears thet where there is a will there is a way. I agree with others on here that the best thing to do is 'loose' the laptop somehow. I am sure you could do without the added expense of replacing it yourself but don't think you should use the replacement laptop he has offered- take it to avoid arguements but make it a priority to replace it yourself asap.

When you leave protect yourself by setting up a new email account, and choosing new password details that he will never guess.

Lots of luck you sound very brave.

Just another vote for smashing with a hammer, have read in many reputable sources that this is the only reliable and secure way.

SOrry, in hurry but wanted to reinforce that point. Best of luck to you.

It's ok - I would format the new laptop myself before I use it in case there is spyware on it. I am pretty computer-savvy, just not an expert Will be changing passwords when I go as well. I think it's doubtful he would be able to get hold of those though, I've seen him try and fail before to crack passwords and my passwords are gobbldegook (I use a pattern in the keyboard e.g. qwerty but not that obviously)

Physical destruction isn't necessary. Formatting isn't good enough, because it won't overwrite the data, but once the data is overwritten it's hard to get it back. You don't need to make it impossible, you just need to make it more trouble that it's worth. If you overwrite it several times with random data, or the write pattern of data it becomes impractical (not necessarily impossible) to recover the data.

Don't just take my word for it. Microsoft provide a secure delete program which should do the job.

technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897443.aspx

Looking at some of the posts on here I am surprised that people think that it is impossible, or even difficult, to recover data from a formatted disk. Just google 'windows data recovery' or 'disk doctor tools' or whatever for a whole range of software to do this ranging from free and easy to use to professional forensic tools.

Kudos to Cruel...Parenting, that must be the least known bit of free Windows software ever. Only problem is it is command prompt and presumably won't run on the disk it is booted from.

I use this to erase laptop hard disks which you can download as a bootable CD ROM.

No reason why it wouldn't run on the disk it's booted from, for deleting specific files.

If you want to completely wipe the disk, including removing Windows, then the tool of choice is probably Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN"), probably run from ultimate boot cd.

If you are going to go when he is not around, why don't you just take the laptop with you?

And leave the new one in situ, so he has no complaints.

Whatever you decide, best of luck to you. It is ALWAYS best to leave an abusive relationship - you know that anyway.

Agree that if you can get out (eg to a women's refuge) when he's not around, take that one with you. If you're feeling devilish, take the "replacement" too, in case the one you are using dies in the not too distant future.

Not sure what you are running, but if it is Windows XP, then you might be able to beg/ borrow/ buy on Ebay, a small hard drive to go in the current laptop... some laptops have a set of hatches on the back to allow access to the wireless card, hard drive, and so on.

If you are able to identify the hard drive (and can perhaps get a 20 GB or 60 GB drive on ebay for a tenner - via a friend if you cannot get deliveries to your own home) then you can download a (bootleg, ie illegal) copy of Windows XP off the internet, write it to a CD and then (when he is out for the day) put the "new" hard drive into your current laptop, use the CD to install Windows XP on it, and then set up the wallpaper and a few other things on your desktop. Make it look as if it is the same, use the browser and go to BBC and other sites (BUT NOT MumsNet or any others you have been using to find property to rent or refuge information or council info about housing).

Wishing you the best of luck - whether you simply move out with your belongings and laptop, or go through with removing the current hard drive and letting him get the current laptop with a "fresh" history (ie nothing useful to him!)

If you cannot easily get a replacement HD then I'll happily post you a "dead" one (or to a friend's address) if you are sure you can get the existing drive out - he's unlikely to know what drive was there in the first place, and unlikely to suspect you of replacing it - just say the laptop won't boot, possibly got knocked off table or whatever...

Just send me a house number and postcode to drop.all.mail @ gmail.com (without the spaces) and I'll send it to "The Mumsnet user" without knowing the town or anything. Shame there's a postal strike on! Will come in a jiffy bag even though it's dead, but smallest jiffy bag I can find!

if "MN user" is not the best, just put whatever name you want used in your e-mail...

bump... BB - just wondering if you've made any progress re securing /wiping info on the hard drive?

Personally I would take the old hard drive out and put a new one in.

I had to throw away a laptop (screen broke) and took out the hard drive, hammered a chisel through the hard drive casing 20 times so the internal disks were smashed into small pieces. I then threw the laptop casing and parts away in several different bins.

I have only just seen this - thank you WebDude, that is lovely of you to offer. Sorry I didn't get back to you before. In the end I actually said the new one wasn't really what I wanted and he didn't seem suspicious at all - so I'm probably being paranoid that he might put recovery software on it but would still rather be safe and will be taking this one when I do leave. (I think it will be fine if I take all my photos off and put them on my other PC)

OK - glad you have a plan to move on with...

I just usually give them a IT Recycling Company. Where they safely and securely destruct your hard drive and computer. I am not a very tech person but my husband always take our old IT equipment to a Recycling company.

There are tools to erase a drive permanently. You need to be able to boot the computer from a CD or USB drive. That can then erase the hard drive by a technique called walking ones. it starts at bit 1 of the first word on the hard drive and writes a 1, then it reads that bit and writes it to bit 2 and writes 0 to bit 1.

Most people when they erase a disk forget to erase the directory.

www.lifewire.com/free-data-destruction-software-programs-2626174

Sarasmith I think it’s safe to say that after 10 years, OP has probably dealt with this by now and that company you ‘helpfully’ recommended has expired licenses and insurance.

ZOMBY THREAD

@chopstheduck

just reformat it, you don't need to destroy it at all physically.

This is plain wrong.

The format command just changes the MBR so the OS cannot see the data, but it most certainly is still there. There are dozens of free utilities that will recover that data in seconds to minutes.

To make the data unrecoverable, the individual sectors need to be overwritten (ideally several times) applications like Boot-and-nuke do this but can take hours to days to run.

I'd just take the laptop with you, failing that switch the hard disk for another of the same size.