{"id":8652,"date":"2007-02-21T21:24:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-22T02:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/2007\/02\/21\/data-destruction\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T11:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T15:35:08","slug":"data-destruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/2007\/02\/21\/data-destruction\/","title":{"rendered":"Data Destruction"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>
Spool from a DLT IV cartridge cut open with a bandsaw.
(Click for more Data Destruction (photo gallery retired)<\/em> photos…)<\/center><\/p>\n

While cleaning out the basement (yes, the long-awaited get-rid-of-the-crap-you-don’t-use cleaning) I came across a bunch of old magnetic media which I wanted to render unreadable. I tried a few different methods, and I think that the best is the use of a band saw. As you can see above, DLT cartridges<\/a> are easily disposed of by removing the spool from the housing and cutting half-way through them with a bandsaw. This turns the whole spool of magnetic ribbon into lengths no longer than ~6 inches. When a bunch of cut tapes are mixed in a box and then tossed like a salad<\/a> they can be rendered nearly irrecoverable. I don’t think even the<\/a> big<\/a> agencies<\/a> would be too anxious to try and recover data from that.<\/p>\n

I also cut into hard drives, from edge of drive to spindle, and in one case cut away one corner of the whole drive<\/a>. Having to dispose of some ZIP disks and DATs I also sliced into portions of these with the bandsaw before tossing them. ZIP disks would be cut to the hub of the platter, and DATs straight into the side of the tape bearing the full spool until reaching the hub.<\/p>\n

I still have to figure out a good way to dispose of lots of both pressed and burned CDs. This too may employ the bandsaw, although a bonfire would work good as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spool from a DLT IV cartridge cut open with a bandsaw.(Click for more Data Destruction (photo gallery retired) photos…) While cleaning out the basement (yes, the long-awaited get-rid-of-the-crap-you-don’t-use cleaning) I came across a bunch of old magnetic media which I wanted to render unreadable. I tried a few different methods, and I think that the\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,13,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-around-the-house","category-computers","category-moved-from-livejournal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12978,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8652\/revisions\/12978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}