Erasing data from 3.5" & 5 1/4" discs

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ceemike

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Nov 19, 2009
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Does anyone know if a "High Powered Video & Audio Tape Eraser" would be capable of erasing a bunch of old floppy discs?
 
Most likely, any strong magnet can do it.. Or toss 'em in ye old incinerator, that's kind of the most effective way.

Something I've had on my Drives since the 5.25" days.... The Constitution of the United States.

Today it's on the Hard drive for this machine and the cell phone's hard card.
 
I physically cut up my old floppy discs with a scissors.
 
Tom,

I just cut or break my old disks in half and throw half of the batch I just cut  up in the trash.  Then a couple of weeks later the other half of the batch I cut up go into the trash.

For hard disks I break them open and cut the disk that was in the case into 2 or 3 pieces and again throw the pieces into two different weekly trash collections.

Being a little paranoid we also have a paper shredder that cuts sheets of paper into tiny little pieces and not those old fashioned long strips of paper.

JerryF
 
Shred the disks. Some home shredders will do it, but there are professional shredders which do it also. If you are in a very rural area and don't have access to professional shredders, just cut the disks up with utility scissors. JerArda has a good way to dispose of them.
 
Where I worked some years back, no longer useful hard drives and CD's went into a hammer mill that reduced them to small bits of scrap. Floppy discs went in a secure incinerator. But to answer the OP's question, yes, a bulk tape eraser will do a good job of deleting all data from floppies, making them unrecoverable with all but the very highest level equipment. And even that level will be "iffy"...
 
Cutting up a floppy does not get rid of the data. If you're that worried the FBI or other people with the right equipment can recover blocks of data from fragments of any disk.

Do a full format, That writes zero's to all the sectors.
 
Jerry, I think we essentially use the same method.
 
Eight hard drives removed from various computers last week, one 10 lb sledge,  and an energetic 15 yr old. Got close enough! If anyone wants to know that bad, I'll just tell em. :(

Ernie
 
SkateBoard said:
Do a full format, That writes zero's to all the sectors.

And the previous data is still recoverable with the right recovery software. There's even a free version that has a good recovery record. Physical total destruction of the media is the only way that's guaranteed to be unrecoverable...

https://www.piriform.com/recuva
 
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