I recently used some DOS commands to pull the data off a hard drive that wouldn't book into Windows. But I had the hard drive in a machine and I was able to get it to boot into a command prompt.

Back when I had a real job, we disassembled our unwanted hard drives and burned the insides with a torch until there was nothing left.

In my neighborhood there are a couple of businesses that "recycle" your old technology stuff. They strip out any usable parts as well as any precious metals. I've never given them a hard drive though.

If they were system drives, sometimes just the boot block goes bad. The OS won't boot from that drive, but if you were to connect it to a working system (perhaps via an external drive chassis) you'd still be able to read files from it.

Beyond that, what everybody else said.

I doubt you need this software for these drives in particular but if you truly have a damaged drive then a piece of software that has performed miracles for me several times is a program called R-Studio, both on PC and Mac drives.

http://www.r-tt.com/

As was mentioned earlier, you don't need any special software as long as you can connect the drive to your computer in some way. This means you need a computer that has provision for attaching multiple drives.

Most drives these days use the SATA interface, but if these are quite old, they will have the older IDE connector, which has 30ish odd connections. In that case you would be best to use a USB to IDE adapter, like this example: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Hot-Sale-USB-to-SATA-IDE-2-5-3-5-Hard-Drive-Adapter-cable-SATA-Data-cable-/190952570673?pt=AU_CablesConnectors&hash=item2c75a8ff31

If you can't make that link work, just Google 'ide to usb adapter'.

Based on your suggestions, I have starting attaching the drives (some had crashed in the past), one at a time via external enclosures. I downloaded a trial version of Runtime software. It is running a scan. So we will see how it turns out. You guys rock.

RZ

I've used recuva from the piniform folks and found it worked about as well as any of the other freeware programs. As to disposal I like to take the drives apart to salvage the magnets, Glue the magnets on a block of wood for a great refrigerator magnet. I run a grinder across the disks and call it good.

while i appreciate ones privacy concerns, i don't think there's anything that would interest anyone on my old drives ;-)

however, where i live we have what's called 'black cracking soil', when it dries out we get up to 2 mt deep cracks appearing. i saran wrap my drives and, with the help of my grandchild, drop them into the deepest we can find.

as and when they ever turn up again i'll probably be long gone and their contents can bore someone else....

I need to remind myself as well, so I feel free to say it: try to implement a good backup strategy at all times to minimise data loss. USB drives are cheap enough to have two copies of anything worth keeping. Then when a disk crashes, just destroy it and discard it. And of course make that second copy to replace the crashed disk.

I have gone many years without disk failures but in the last two years I have had about three. (One was my fault when I dropped a USB drive while it was in operation: I tripped on the cord.)

I also use Hard Disk Sentinel to monitor hard disks. It reports disk temperature and segment reallocation via SMART. If a disk seems to be on the way out, I replace it before disaster strikes.

Leslie, I am intrigued that you go to the trouble of saran wrap. It looks a bit like embalming for your future life or perhaps for future archeologists.

(I know you are trying to be environmentally conscious.)

hi peter,

it wasn't my idea - emil (my grandchild) said they might get wet and wouldn't work when he dug them up again....

but i like your idea of embalming / mummifying. looks like emil and i will have to start investigating the pharaohs and see if we can do any better than saran wrap.

Disk drives may contain toxic materials you should recycle properly. Older ones especially will have lead solder.

I disassemble mine (a pain, lots of tiny torx screws) and then run the magnets over the surface prior to recycling. Once they're torn apart they're just metal and I can get rid of the circuit boards where I work. This is good enough for most privacy concerns.

You should care about having your passwords, logons, birth date and social security number stolen. Lots of these are recovered by people buying old PCs, disks, and printers. Yes, many printers store lots of info including images of your tax return and other documents you may not wish to share.

If you're concerned about intelligence agencies recovering your data, the only way to be absolutely sure is to heat the platters up to over 400F/200C. Not that I'm concerned, but I have built a bonfire in my backyard and thrown a stack of platters in there. They make a nice amorphous mound of aluminum slag after melting.

rocky

Hmm, lots of information there and most of it incorrect. A good wallop with a hammer will kill any disk drive stone dead. If it can't spin up, then nothing can be recovered from it. They are extremely delicate things.

Printers than remember your tax return?? Sorry, that's just not true. They have RAM memory in them to cache a print job, but switch them off and everything is gone. Also, the RAM only remembers the last job it did.

Geoff

Lot of useful input from you guys. Thanks. I managed to look in a few disks so far with "recuva". Some useful files recovered. Fortunately, I had my pictures and videos on separate drives so that was good.

I have heard there are services that actually shred the drives. Anyone has sky experience with that.

RZ

Couple of drywall screws and a makita... good clean fun.

Don't even really need drywall screws. Just drill a few holes through it.

Man, a lot of violent methods used by people, but for what purpose? Maybe some folks have information that is much more secret than the stuff I have. Jimmy Hoffa's burial place? The second gunman on the Grassy Knoll? The secret to Cold Fusion?

Besides, I believe the NSA already knows everything there is to know about me.

Anyway, a solid thwack of a hammer is good enough for my secrets.

Geebax, you are misinformed.

Many printers, most large ones, have disk drives. Get the printer, get the disk, get the document.

It is possible to recover the data from a raw disk platter if you really want to and are willing to invest the time and money to do so. You do not need a working drive to do so. Most people are not willing to make this investment and do not have the ability.

However, beyond intelligence agencies, there are professional criminal organizations that are highly technically competent and may have the ability and desire to do so. Identity theft in bulk is big business these days.

No, I beg your pardon, I am not misinformed. I wager that almost no one on this forum has one of those ancient printers that used disk drives. They were only used in expensive high end printers, all commonly available printers use ram these days.

And once a hard drive is smacked with a hammer, I don't care who you are, you are not going to get anything off it.

Any criminal organisation or intelligence outfit trying to scavenge information off my old drives is in for a tough time, because I don't actually throw them out.

Honestly, this whole subject smells of paranoia.

I don't think i've ever encountered a printer with a hard drive in it. I know we looked at getting a large scale Xerox copier/printer with a hard drive, but the expense was prohibitive compared to the functionality. We got one without a hard drive and simply let the users' workstations queue to it, for gobs and gobs less money.

The hammer strikes i give the drives not only shatter the circuit board but dent the case in far enough to bend or shatter the platters. It's extremely unlikely that anything could ever be read from them.

My concerns are mostly stored account & password information that may be on the drives, but we also have proprietary data we have created that we'd rather not give away, as well as customer data that we're not allowed to let into other hands. It's not paranoia at all, so much as good business practice.

I rather wonder who actually stores account and password information on their computer, I certainly do not. And it is not something the computer will do unless you go to the trouble of actually recording the information yourself. In which case, you are certainly taking risks with the information.

As near as I know, there is nothing stored on my disks that would be of any interest to anyone trying to thieve my identity.

Not even *ANY* of the emails that have ever gone back and forth between you and your bank or other financial transaction statements? It's amazing how much of a wedge an identity thief can get from just your name, address, and last four digits of your social security number or major credit card number.

No, I do not deal with my bank by email, and it is a quite active business trading account. And although I sell products on-line through a shopping cart, all credit card transactions are handled by a third party gateway, so I never get CC numbers.

And we don't have social security cards in Australia.

(And our only Black Helicopter crashed last week) :-(

Edit: oops, it seems we had another, but it crashed today.