Re: How to zero a failing disk drive before disposal?

On Fri, 2024-10-11 at 13:42 +1100, Dewayne Geraghty wrote:
> We bench-drilled the hard-disks before

Sorry for the flood of emails, a virus (for humans, not computers) is
keeping me glued to the keyboard.

Drill holes probably have a much more dramatic effect on hard discs than
on CDs, as the burr of a drill hole alone ensures that there is no
clearance to the heads, so that the discs can no longer rotate. Open and
deburr? ;)

I've just googled the old audio CD myth from the early days of the CD,
namely that you could drill large holes in them and still use them
without any loss of quality, and I've actually found a video in German
that is only 5 years old and still claims this IMO nonsense and
justifies it with
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-interleaved_Reed%E2%80%93Solomon_coding
. However, the whole thing was not demonstrated. If thick holes have
been drilled into all the places where the audio recording is stored in
which you say the PIN of your debit card, then even "interpolation"
cannot restore the spoken PIN.

I will now try to keep my fingers off the keyboard. My point should be
clear by now. There are too many myths about how data can still be
recoverd. What may potentially be possible is hardly to be expected in
reality.