IT Recycling & Data Destruction

[softscoop]

I have a rather large storage room at work completely full from floor to ceiling of old computers in various states of repair, broken monitors, printers etc.

 

Searching on Google, there are lots of companies offering to take these away for us, some even to pay for them.

 

I don't particularly have the time to wipe all the data off these. I could pull all the hard drives, but then I'm left with a large collection of drives that I have no use for, apart from maybe a good line of dominoes in the car park.

 

Have any of you used these bulk collection services? I'm not particularly trusting of anyone turning up promising to securely wipe data and then disappearing off into the night.

[Coops]

We use one of these companies and have a formal contract with them, they are imbedded into our operation and based on site with us.

 

I can give you a contact name/email if you want to discuss with them.

[softscoop]

This is something that will only really be a one off, at least for quite a while.

[Coops]

If you PM me some details eg. types and volumes I can enquire to see whether they would collect etc.

 

Are you looking for a return or merely to dispose of cost neutral

[Huskoda]

I've done data destruction on a mass of harddrives before. Took them out back and put a pick axe through them. That would do the trick.

[MarkG1989]

We use a company at work who used to be called Manga-Fu, however are now called WEEE Stop. We don't have a contract with them, we just call them whenever we have enough stuff to warrant a collection, although I believe they will collect as little or as much as you have to go.

 

Their website - http://weee-stop.co.uk/

 

I believe they can destroy hard drives without the need of wiping them, and can also provide an inventory of items they have taken for destruction, and also can provide serial numbers of equipment too. 

[mannyo]

We use a local company, just give them the PCs as they were decommissioned and they certify that the data/disks are destroyed when the kit is recycled.

[Aspman]

If you've anything on them that might come back and bite you via the ICO if it's not done right make sure you have a contract even for a one off job and enough audit trail to prove you've done your bit right.

I know of a local authority that was fined when their disposal company botched it and the contract was found to be weak.

 

Either that or a pickaxe / drill through the platters.

[GentleGiant]

Be wary of companies offering to wipe the drives for you; I picked up a 2nd user system from one such supplier a few years ago and found 9GB of personal data belonging to students at a London college (it was only a 10GB HDD). If someone like Coops can vouch for a company that is fine, but dont blindly trust unknown companies.

[slider]

pull the hard drives and take a hammer to them.

[VWD]

I occasionally buy something like a 80gb clean pull ,wiped HDD to use as a data back up. I simply store any data i want to keep safe on them and remove HDD out of PC. Every so often I'll update the stored data ,to keep my backup up to date. I always do a disc test on these, and on more than one occasion I've doe a data restore /recover, and have been glad that I have every single HDD I've ever used kept safe, as I've been able to recover data from these so called wiped drives.

[gadgetman]

Are there any good apps to wipe data?

 

I'm getting a new works machine soon and wanted to pull my data and overwrite the freed space with random data.  Sadly I cant put an axe trough it

[rossm]

If its a work machine with people's personal data on it, best option is to use full disk encryption, even if its a freebie like Bitlocker or Truecrypt with a strong encryption key.  Then when it comes to recycling / disposal / selling the machine, formatting or re-imaging the drive is enough is enough assurance that the data isn't recoverable (...unless someone was very determined and was happy to keep trying for years!).   Likewise, if the machine was stolen it gives you peace of mind that your company won't get hit with a fine (up to £500k) from the ICO.

 

If your using a disposal company, make sure they're reputable and give you data destruction certificates, matched with HDD serial numbers for anything you hand over.

 

If you want to destroy the data yourself (again for small numbers), something like Darik's Boot and Nuke is a good freebie and runs from a bootable DVD.  For larger numbers where you don't care about recycling the HDD, get inventive and destructive, chisels, pick-axes.  Wait till your having a bad day and get destructive

[Macdemon]

I've done data destruction on a mass of harddrives before. Took them out back and put a pick axe through them. That would do the trick.

 

I was going to suggest a tungsten drill bit and put a hole in the drives, that will make the data unrecoverable.

[jjc]

Try this it is free and works well, http://www.dban.org/

 

John

[Aspman]

Another vote for DBAN.

 

Takes a while to do properly.

[GentleGiant]

DBan doesnt work for every PC, I tried it out on several I was stripping and it only worked on 1/2 of them; on the others it threw errors and refused to work. I suspect it doesnt like multiple HDDs, because the systems that worked were all single or twin HDD boxes, and the fails had three or more drives..

[cheezemonkhai]

Wipe the drives yourself or shred them on site.

 

If you let them go a whole world of pain can come. Also a pick axe is not enough to keep the data safe.

[Aspman]

Don't leave anything behind...

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-26650124

[rwbaldwin]

The last time we did this, the physical disks were ground up in front of us. All that was left was pea sized bits of metal, plastic and pcb.

If you want to wipe the drive, then use a commercial tool such as White Canyon WipeDrive that erases to EAL4+ or DOD 5220.22-M security standards.

[jlwah]

Check any suppliers for this service work to BSEN15713:2009 Secure Distraction of Confidential Material. Organisations can get certified to this standard so check for this as confirmation.

 

Oh, and make sure you get a certificate of destruction from them.

Edited 25 March, 2014 by jlwah

[Aspman]

^ you should also excercise your right within the contract to inspect the site and test a sample of 'destroyed' drives if they are recyling and selling rather than physical destruction.

[cheezemonkhai]

My advice would be if you just want to make sure nothing can be read easily for polite reasons, then a wipe is fine, but if the data really does need to die, then have the drives destroyed in front of you on site.

 

If you know anyone with a forge, that works too

[Dr Zoidberg]

We use http://www.simsrecycling.com at work. They are definitely a trustworthy company and we audited them as part of our ISO 27001 process.

They charge us for a collection then credit us for anything that has value.

No harm in destroying hard drives yourself before they go. A lump hammer and huge chisel works well enough.