Destroy Floppy Disks

Do you have a lot of floppy disks laying around? Is the data on these disks unknown to you? Are you afraid of throwing them away? Here are a few steps you can take to securely destroy your disks, depending on the level of destruction you would like.

Steps

1. Obtain a powerful magnet, such as a neodymium magnet, and rub the magnet all over both sides of your floppy disk. This will change all those 1's and 0's, making the data on the disk unusable.
2. Rip open the floppy disk and cut it up with a pair of scissors. The smaller and more numerous the pieces, the better, as the pieces can be taped back together. Also don't cut a neat design; random cuts will work best.
3. Pull the disk apart, rip out the metal center and put the magnetic tape into a cross-cut shredder.
4. Burn them. This has been the U.S. Government way of destroying classified material for many years. Make sure you do it safely, such as a fireplace, or a solid metal trash bin outside in a clear area. Make sure there is no wind if you do this outside, as you do not want the flames to fly away and start a forest fire.

Tips

• Also understand that if you cut the floppy disk really well, it is possible that the data on the other half can be retrieved.
• Floppy disks are written using a magnet; it can also destroy the data. Also, you need to understand what it would take to make a "destroyed" floppy disk readable.
• The simultaneous destruction of the floppy disks is recommended; since all magnetic pieces look the same, this will make it exponentially harder to piece the correct pieces back together.

Warnings

• Burning plastics, such as those floppy disks, releases toxic chemicals into the atmosphere.
• Make sure that you don't need the data you are about to destroy.

Things You'll Need

• Floppy disk
• Strong magnet (neodymium), scissors and/or shredder
• Matches and fireplace
• Solid metal trash can and lighter fluid or gasoline

Related Articles

• Make a Starship Enterprise out of a Floppy Disk
• Create Bootable CD from a Bootable Floppy Disk
• Format a Hard Disk
• Wipe Clean an External Hard Drive

See also

• Attach a USB Drive to Your Computer
• Use Pen Drive As RAM
• Partition a Thumb Drive
• Put Music on a Flash Drive
• Remove Write Protection on an SD Card
• Install Windows 7 Using Pen Drive
• Make a USB Bootable
• Build an External Hard Drive
• Use MEGA Cloud Storage
• Format a Flash Drive

Read more ...