Securely disposing of old computers

[Brazen]

I'm going to take two old tower systems, a notebook PC and two hard drive TV boxes to the recycling facility this weekend, and send a tablet to a postal recycler for money. Any tips on securely deleting all my personal details before I do so?

[Syt]

http://www.wikihow.com/Destroy-a-Hard-Drive

[Brazen]

The fastest, most direct method of destroying the platter is with a hammer. Put it on a surface that can take a beating and is easy to clean up, strap on some goggles and safety gloves, and take out your aggression that's been pent up ever since George Lucas blasphemed all over what was a perfectly good franchise

Some great ideas there, thanks 

[Darth Wagtaros]

I put a few magnets on one and then hammered nails into it.

There are professional services that'll expose it to a giant magnet and then use a drill press. 

You could load it up with bootnnuke and zero it out numerous times, and then physically destroy it.

[Maladict]

I usually take out the HDD and hit it with a hammer a few times.
Put some cloth over it so you don't get hit by pieces of glass and metal.

[Syt]

that'll expose it to a giant magnet

[Monoriu]

I usually dump the HDD and lots of water into a plastic bag. 

[viper37]

Install Windows on another drive* or use this:
http://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/make_pe3

Install Ccleaner.
Plug your tablet in Windows, it should see it as a drive.
Run Ccleaner.
go to Tools => Driver Wiper => (Wipe) Entire Drive => (Security) Complex overwrite (7passes) or very complex overwrite (35 passes) => select your drives
It's gonna take 2-3 days, maybe more, depending on the level of security you chose, the size of your hard drives, the speed of your computer.
I recommend "complex overwrite (7 passes) wich is sufficient in most cases.
It has the advantage of not destroying the hard drive, wich can than be used by the recycling center to rebuild computers for poorer people.


*If you already have your new computer, simply plug your old hard drive in it, temporarily.

[viper37]

I usually dump the HDD and lots of water into a plastic bag. 

not enough.

[lustindarkness]

I use Federal Hydra-Shok .45 ACP 230 grain hollowpoints.

[DontSayBanana]

I usually dump the HDD and lots of water into a plastic bag.

Easy mistake to make, but that won't do anything to a hard drive except rust it.  The water would short out chips if power was going to them, but a hard drive platter is just a big magnet.  Magnetize the whole thing and it goes from ones and zeros to nothing but ones.  A good forensic analyst would check the relative strength of the magnetism, though, so that's where physically destroying the platter comes in- then they've got to piece together the platter and piece together the data that was on it.

[DontSayBanana]

My actual recommendation is to give a hard drive a pass with DBAN (Dave's Boot and Nuke) before handing it off to a computer recycler.  That makes data unrecoverable to an extent that physically destroying the drive is only really worth the extra effort if you've got stuff pertaining to national security on there (or it's required by company policy, but they'll usually contract with somebody to do the dirty work).

[Darth Wagtaros]

You could also make some thermite and then laugh while the data burns. 

[MadBurgerMaker]

We either degauss them or physically destroy them with a punch.  Or both if we're feelin squirrely.

[viper37]

New tech around:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/startech-standalone-eraser-dock-review/
Aimed at corporations who disposed of many drives a year.  I wouldn't recommend it for one drive every 5 years.