Destroying floppy disks?

Jane,

Yes, any size drill bit - I would choose 1/8th or larger just to avoid breaking a tiny bit.

The more sensitive the data, the more extreme the measures. I am with Grant on not wasting items but only you can decide how certain you want to be.

A regular magnet is hard to define. A refrigerator magnet barely has enough power to hold itself to metal while a horseshoe shaped magnet typically has enough focus to do the job without getting so close that you take more time than just letting the floppy drive erase it.

You could conduct a few tests with several magnets and make a science experiment out of it. : )

Drilling as you decribed (or using a hydraulic punch) is the most extreme method of guaranteeing destruction that I have seen come out of government auctions. Your choice.

Jim

jadam,

The most common method for hard drives is to drill through them. That would pretty much do it for a stack of floppies.

Radio Shack does sell a high powered electro magnet designed specifically for erasing VHS video tapes. Wave that over a floppy and you have a happy result.

Finally, take apart a hard drive, turn the platters into wind chimes and use those magnets as very powerful magnets.

Jim

All you really need to do to destroy the data is erase/initialize/format them, but that takes a while.

You could crush the plastic and remove the magnetic medium if it makes you feel better. Folding, cutting, fingerprinting, punching holes or similar damage also makes them unreadable without spy equipment.

If these are HD floppies (two holes) folks are still using them, and the cheap Yankee in me hates to see them destroyed when people are buying and using new ones.