Comments on: Mounting UFS/ext2/ext3 filesystems on Windows XP, and destroying old development hard drives.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 02:52:29 +0000

I had exactly the same situation – had a pile of old hd drives that I could not dispose because they were full of stuff and did not have time to delete it.

Now, applying the method mentioned by Max is slightly difficult, you need tools, you make noise etc, therefore I downloaded a free tool called killdisk – they also offer you an iso of a bootable cd that can be used.

I successfully deleted all the data. The only cons: the process is time consuming, couple of hours a hard drive.

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 20:17:27 +0000

I've used timber spikes, an axe, a splitting maul, and my .30-30 Winchester to do this job. You can retire about 3~4 at a time with a rifle, and a 3.5" drive is a good sized challenging target at 100 yards or more.

Also you can use the MMC (Microsoft Management Console) to view drives with non-Windows partitions. Easiest way is right-click My Computer and pick Manage. You can delete partitions and reformat from there. But the Winchester is far more fun

By: Max

Max — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:59:45 +0000

I find that a hammer, 4 inch steel nail and a block of wood are speedier for old drives, and just as effective… not to mention way more satisfying…