30-year-old hard drive

[aisle9]

I have somehow found myself with a 30+year-old Tandy Sensation. I can't figure out how to open it, and I want to touch the bare minimum number of things in it. It's gross, and a look through an expansion port with no card shows some beautiful old hardware and disgusting old crap. Thing is, it's my dad's old PC and he's very much alive, so I kind of care about whether there's any personal data on it before dropping it off at the e-waste center.

 

So to the point: is there any chance that the 30+year-old hard drive that hasn't seen any use in at least 20 years has just corrupted itself with old age and is no longer readable? I have no PS/2 keyboard, no VGA monitor, and very little faith that the system wouldn't go bang if I tried to plug it in to wipe it.

[johnno23]

if you are wanting to check for old files that you want to recover you can pull the drive and use a simply IDE to SATA adapter. then you can hook up the drive to your own PC and check.

If it is more to just ensure no personal data can be accessed thats easy.

small screw driver open the drive and then just use a hammer to smash the glass platters inside.

 

[aisle9]

2 minutes ago, johnno23 said:

if you are wanting to check for old files that you want to recover you can pull the drive and use a simply IDE to SATA adapter. then you can hook up the drive to your own PC and check.

If it is more to just ensure no personal data can be accessed thats easy.

small screw driver open the drive and then just use a hammer to smash the glass platters inside.

 

See there's the problem. I can see the mouse shit through an open ISA port. I feel like I'm getting tuberculosis just having this thing on my desk after it spent 20 years in a Florida attic. I need someone to reassure me that the 30+-year-old data on that drive is long since dead, killed by age, humidity and rodent feces.

[johnno23]

The drive is a sealed unit and at worst the grease might have dried out so it will simply click when it is powered on.

the issue though is that the drive if the grease has not dried out will probably function perfectly fine.

Best thing for security is wear a mask put on some gloves and remove the drive.

then use a hammer and dump in the bin. That way no persoanl info can ever be recovered.

 

EDIT: I still have a small laptop mechanical hard drive from an old 90s Apple powerbook. It has music files on it and still functions to this day..

[da na]

Is the hard drive IDE? SCSI?

Grease of the HDD has likely dried out, or rubber has melted and trapped the head so it cannot move. Opening these old drives is not difficult and both problems are not too hard to fix. 

If you only care about data security, I hate to say this but open the drive, scratch up the platter(s) with something sharp.

[Needfuldoer]

33 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

So to the point: is there any chance that the 30+year-old hard drive that hasn't seen any use in at least 20 years has just corrupted itself with old age and is no longer readable?

I doubt it. Even if the drive has suffered a mechanical failure, there's a good chance the data (if not the drive itself) is recoverable.

[Crunchy Dragon]

To add to what other people have said regarding data security, you can also just take a drill and just make a hole through the entire thing.

[aisle9]

38 minutes ago, johnno23 said:

The drive is a sealed unit and at worst the grease might have dried out so it will simply click when it is powered on.

the issue though is that the drive if the grease has not dried out will probably function perfectly fine.

Best thing for security is wear a mask put on some gloves and remove the drive.

then use a hammer and dump in the bin. That way no persoanl info can ever be recovered.

 

EDIT: I still have a small laptop mechanical hard drive from an old 90s Apple powerbook. It has music files on it and still functions to this day..

Well f*ck. Maybe someone below will disagree with you?

 

22 minutes ago, da na said:

Is the hard drive IDE? SCSI?

Grease of the HDD has likely dried out, or rubber has melted and trapped the head so it cannot move. Opening these old drives is not difficult and both problems are not too hard to fix. 

If you only care about data security, I hate to say this but open the drive, scratch up the platter(s) with something sharp.

F*ck.

 

20 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

I doubt it. Even if the drive has suffered a mechanical failure, there's a good chance the data (if not the drive itself) is recoverable.

Double f*ck.

 

9 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

To add to what other people have said regarding data security, you can also just take a drill and just make a hole through the entire thing.

Super ultra mega f*ck.

 

Guess I'm opening this thing up. If there's a dead rat in there I am burning the building down.

[Needfuldoer]

11 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

Guess I'm opening this thing up. If there's a dead rat in there I am burning the building down.

Wear gloves and an N95 if you're that worried.

 

If you can clean that thing up enough to be presentable, someone will probably buy it off of you. It's old enough that it's on the far side of the bathtub curve.

[PDifolco]

You can use a magnet to be pretty sure it's unreadable

[aisle9]

4 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Wear gloves and an N95 if you're that worried.

 

If you can clean that thing up enough to be presentable, someone will probably buy it off of you. It's old enough that it's on the far side of the bathtub curve.

The CPU's been yoinked, the RAM's been yoinked, really all that's left is a very stinky-ass PSU (smells like magic smoke, tbh), the drive rails, and a HDD at the bottom that I can't figure out how to get to because the drive rail above it is literally glued stuck by years of crap.

 

1 minute ago, PDifolco said:

You can use a magnet to be pretty sure it's unreadable

That takes one hell of a magnet, though. Neodymium. I don't have that.

[PDifolco]

11 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

The CPU's been yoinked, the RAM's been yoinked, really all that's left is a very stinky-ass PSU (smells like magic smoke, tbh), the drive rails, and a HDD at the bottom that I can't figure out how to get to because the drive rail above it is literally glued stuck by years of crap.

 

That takes one hell of a magnet, though. Neodymium. I don't have that.

Yup, a simple hammer is more practical

[RokinAmerica]

I have no idea why you would not clean the crap out of it and ebay the thing.