Recently, a business associate was getting rid of an old PC and wrote me about how to make absolutely sure the information off of that PC could never be found by anyone. After giving it some thought and a little research, I realized I had never before (looked for or) seen a straight-forward answer to this question so I thought I would share what I found. The remainder of this blog is my reply to her.

The only things on (really in) computers you need to worry about are the hard drives. If the old computer has no real value, you just need to open it up and rip out the hard drives and destroy them physically. Sounds funny, but it is the safest way to be sure they are unreadable. The rectangular box that "is" the hard drive is really 80% protective material hiding the actual hard drive "platters." You need to get to the platters, here is a how-to on doing it:

http://www.dominopower.com/issues/issue200603/00001737002

This (picture below) is what you are trying to get to on the walk-through. These are what we call platters on the inside of the hard drive. They are what holds your data. When you get to them, sand them with sand paper, cut them up, etc. and they are unreadable.

This might be overkill, but it is the safest way.