On 09/02/2013 10:42 PM, Erik Christiansen wrote:
On 02.09.13 18:01, Roger wrote:
On 09/02/2013 05:45 PM, Daniel Cross wrote:
Warm soapy water and a clean sponge....
Wont work! detergents leave residue which can collect bits and bytes in random order and make the shiny disk surface greasy so the heads stick. I have found a log splitter to be pretty effective if used sharp end down and swung particularly hard to impact a drive which is positioned neatly on an anvil or piece of railway line! Ah, the splitting hammer¹, not the 20 tonne hydraulic log splitter in the woodshed ... I thought it was taking destruction to new heights. ;-)
Having a wood heater, I'd likely extract the (typically aluminium) platters, and drop them into the fire. On a winters night, with the air register open, it'll melt aluminium quite readily. (Then all the bits go up the chimney, I guess.)
Or, a pair of tinsnips would allow the thin platters to easily be snipped into strips, and then little squares, which could be sprinkled into bins along the street on bin night. If the spooks put that back together, they'd be really disappointed with what's on my drives.
Erik
¹ My splitting hammer (cum block splitter) gets to split 8 - 10 m^3 of firewood each year. It wouldn't leave a disk drive in a good state.
Mine too! I did try it on hard drives, the bits are more easily washable! Aluminium cans thrown in the fire are supposed to help clean the chimney so I'm guessing the heat of the fire will also clean the hard drive. But! Linux has so far survived anything thrown at it. The installation may just hang around in the firebox....waiting....! If you see a flames screen saver in the firebox door, rejoice Linux survived.... Roger