Hrd drives are very important devices to recycle. Unfortunately, many people take their old hard drives to recycling centers and throw the empty drives away. But, be careful, because some recycling centers may dispose of the hard drives without further destroying them. Hard drives can pose a bigger environmental threat than goods such as food and clothing. Computer hard drives can contain your social security number (SSN), credit card numbers, bank account numbers, as well as passwords. The data on such personal information can be easily accessed by anyone who accesses the hard drive.
Other than that, hard drives pose health and safety risks to consumers, capable of causing higher force if damaged. Therefore, always ensure that your hard drives are completely emptied prior to sending them to a recycling center. Any hard drives larger than 5GB can be recycled. However, it is essential to use encryption software like BitLocker to secure the data stored on your hard drive before processing it. On the other hand, please be aware that if the encryption data you plan to send is too large, then sorting centers may not be able to process the information in a timely manner.
Quite often, consumers mistakenly believe that hard drives can be recycled and disposed of simply by spinning them down. In reality, the same process of destruction applies to all hard drives. A computer hard drive must be completely destroyed within a specific time period, usually one hour at hazardous waste facilities or the facility where they are collected for recycling, if the manufacturer requires this length of time.
As mentioned previously, it is best not to dispose of computers or mobile phones containing personal data that have significant sentimental value. In such cases, it is better to destroy the entire device rather than sending an empty device to a recycling center. Luckily broken laptops and desktops can be repaired much quicker than other items. However, turning old laptops into tablets for educational purposes is not the most eco-friendly option if you want them to last for several more years.
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Claims that wipes can be undone, or only partially completed, could result in unwanted legal action against you.
Before you destroy your computer and take your hard drive with it, be sure to back up any important files or documents onto another storage device, such as a thumb drive, removable disk, or USB flash drive, which can be easily copied back to your computer via a file transfer protocol (FTPS) connection.
Before downloading the free My Data Eraser, you need to install QuickSSH. Here’s how to do so:
In this tutorial, I used the 10gb version, but the version you use depends on your choice of storage drive.
When you start MyDoom, you will be presented with options such as “Erase all installed files” or “Reset computer”, which will start a data wiping process.
Select “Erase all installed files”, and the My Data Eraser application will wipe all content and settings from your hard drive. If all your files have data on them, all prior backups will also be deleted.
The detailed steps to execute the wipe are on MyDoom’s official website. Also, upon execution of the wiping process and after 30 minutes, the MyDoom window will update your hard drive with a “Erased by MyDataEraser” message.
Once you have completed all these steps, after clicking apply, you will be prompted to insert the hard drive into the computer or to start the wiping process over. Select “Start wipe again” and the My Data Eraser application will start cleaning your hard drive in an attempt to fully erase your files.
Or you can contact any hard drive recycling expert company.