Which? recommends “Smash up your hard drive to avoid ID theft”
Which? magazine as recently advised readers to physically destroy their hard disks with a hammer to prevent you becoming a victim of identity theft (full article).
While this is good stress therapy, it’s not a method that we at Network Midlands recommend. We recommend running a data destroying program like Darik’s Boot And Nuke (DBAN). This is a self contained disk that you can boot your computer from which will then securely delete all the information on your hard drive, without having to remove the disk from your computer. DBAN uses one of a number of different erase techniques, ranging from moderately secure to highly secure.
After downloading the software as a CD or DVD image or for floppy disk or USB drive, you then create the relevant bootable CD, DVD, floppy disk or USB drive, booy your computer from it, select the required disk to erase and erase options and go. BE WARNED – THIS WIPES EVERYTHING ON YOUR DISK AND LEAVES IT UNRECOVERABLE. It can also take a long time. I recently erased a 20gb disk and it took nearly 10 hours.
As an alternative, why not contact us and we’ll erase the disk for you. Prices start from £50 per disk and we’ll check that nothing is recoverable. Find out more about our secure data destruction service.
