Action Recycling destroys hard drives! Please call for our very low prices (the prices are based on the number of hard drives you have). Protect yourself from unauthorized use of your personal data or identity theft by always having your hard drive completely destroyed.
Frequently Asked Questions:
1. How will my hard drive be destroyed?
Action Recycling uses degaussing machines to destroy all data on your hard drives.
2. What is the best way to destroy a hard drive?
There are several ways to destroy hard drives. Here is the scoop…
BEST:
MELT YOUR HARD DRIVE. This is one of the very best ways to do it. Problem is that this is very impractical – there are plastics and lead in the hard drive which could go up in smoke into the air. The hard drive is mostly aluminum but most of the other metals melt into the aluminum, making an alloy which is harder to process and recycle later.
GRIND YOUR HARD DRIVE TO A POWDER. This is another of the very best ways to do it. Same problem – this is very impractical. The powder is toxic and can get into the ground water. The powder probably cannot be recycled.
DEGAUSS YOUR HARD DRIVE. Degaussing uses a super strong magnet to completely destroy everything on your hard drive. It creates no pollution. It devstroys all data even on the bad sectors. You can read more about degaussing at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degaussing The hard drive remains intact so that all the metals can be recycled. This is a very environmental responsible way to destroy your hard drive.
GOOD:
SHRED YOUR HARD DRIVE. Shredding is very popular. A shredder will cut the hard drive into many small pieces. This is a pretty good way to destroy your data. However, there are still some very large pieces of the hard drive platter left over which could actually be looked at under a microscope to determine what is there (assuming someone really wanted to do this). One problem with the shredded hard drive is that all the metals are now mixed up and are hard to separate for ultimate recycling.
OK:
HIT WITH HAMMER OR DRILL A HOLE. Sometimes hard drive owners will hit their hard drive with a hammer or will drill a hole in it. This is possibly okay if you make sure you adequately damage the round platter (disk). If not, this is very similar to the shredding – there maybe parts of your hard drive which someone could still see if they really wanted to and had the technology.
ERASING. If you have erasing software which meets the Department of Defense (DOD) standards, this may be another okay way to protect your data on your hard drive. If you just “format” or erase the hard drive while it is in your computer, your data will not be erased (only the file indexes get erased) and someone with forensic software can still find your data. Also, the bad sectors on the hard drive will not be erased even with good software. Therefore if someone really wanted to, they could try to access the bad sectors which may still contain data.
We highly recommend that you have Action Recycling degauss your hard drives to protect you from identity theft.