Got some disks and need to get rid of them, huh? Don't have a spiffy degausser or a magic wand? Do this!

What you'll need:

• A quality electric screwdriver, like a DeWalt 5718.
• Some self-drilling screws. We used 10-16x1's, which were just long enough for this.
• Office neighbors who don't mind.

What to do:

• Using the drill, screw the screws through the disk. You want to aim for the disk part, not the heads (and certainly not the dead space next to the arm). If in doubt, put more than one. We aimed for getting the screw through the other side, which worked except for the Seagate, which pried itself apart. Discard disk with screw.
• If you enjoy listening to the sound of metal on metal, you could do this with a drill press and by turning the disk into Swiss cheese. Beware of bit-breakage.
• A more secure version would be to find a local metal recycler with a metal shredder. Colleagues of ours used found a recycler who wanted the metal, so they got to throw the disks into the shredder for free.

Advantages:

• Super-fast. We managed to destroy about 40 disks in about 20 minutes.
• Super-cheap. The drill we had, and the screws cost about $4.00 for the package.
• Works with all disk vendors, all interfaces, and all platforms --- even Macintosh!
  
  

  	Quantum (from a Mac)
  	Maxtor
  	IBM
  	Seagate
  	Western Digital

Hey, you in the back. Yeah, we know, someone truly determined might be able to get the data off. Thank you.