RECYCLE YOUR OLD HARD DRIVES

Today's rapid advance in computing technology means that hard drives quickly become obsolete. Therefore hard drives are updated on a regular basis in order to take advantage the latest developments and increases in capacity.

This has led to the problem of what to do with the rapidly growing stockpile of old hard drives which could contain sensitive data.

Hard drives are the component within a computer that stores all your, or your companies, data. Some people think that the computer is the hard drive, but in fact the hard drive is a component within the computer case. Or it can be connected separately as a stand alone unit. To clarify the pictures above show a computer, a stand alone USB hard drive and two internal hard drives.

Data on old hard drives must be destroyed before they are allowed to leave your control. This is the only way to protect your data, and prevent ID fraud.

There are many programs available for download which will destroy your data, you want a program that will overwrite all the data on your hard drives.
Just reformatting a hard drive will not destroy the data.

Any good computer recycler will be able to offer you the above facility, or will use a specialist machine to physically destroy your hard drive/s

Old hard drives can contain among other things plastic, ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals (lead, cadmium, antimony, beryllium, chromium and mercury), electronic boards (gold, palladium, silver and platinum). Many of these materials are toxic and do not break down naturally, and if put into a landfill site will eventually contaminate the water table.