Hard Drive Shedding

What exactly is hard drive shedding? This is when a specialty company uses a machine called a hard drive shredder to destroy old hard drives from computers physically so the data that was on the hard drives is not recoverable. The hard drive of your computer functions as an internal storage device and allows your computer to store and carry out important programs and files. It is a fundamental part of your modern computer. The reason that it should be shredded or destroyed when you get rid of your computer is because it stores important programs and files so there may be some sensitive data that you do not want others to be privileged too. If you are getting rid of your computer you should take out the hard drive, or the professionals at the company where you are getting your hard drive shredded can remove it.

When you take the hard drive to a company that specializes in hard drive shedding, they will destroy the platter in the hard drive because that is where the data is stored. The hard drive will be shredded into miniscule particles. This hard drive’s data bits will not be destroyed by overwriting them with other data many times or by re-formatting. The hard drive shredder destroys them physically. There are some programs called hard drive shredding utilities that “claim” the data is overwritten several times with nonsense that the original data is unreadable. Some computer experts, or hackers, state that they could recover the original data even after using the utility. This could even happen if the overwriting was done over a hundred times. Even if you drilled holes in the hard drive does not always work because there are some tracks, or plates with data that will remain un-severed unless you take the time to drill hundreds of holes.

When a hard drive shredder is used, it cuts and shreds the metal and forces it through screens and cutters. It also compacts the hard drive. This makes it totally unrecoverable. The most successful way to make sure that the data on the hard drive is completely gone is to pulverize the hard drive, much the same way a wood chipper would get rid of limbs. The resulting particles are toxic so you have to take environmental precautions when getting rid of the particles. This is why you should take your hard drive to a professional because they know how to shred the hard drive and how to get rid of the toxic particles without endangering the environment.

These specialty companies do charge a fee for shredding your hard drive but it is worth it not to have your personal information fall into the wrong hands.