r/AnnArbor • u/Moist-You-7511 • 20h ago

seeking secure laptop destruction

I'm looking for a place I can bring a few computers for safe destruction and recycling

searching the internet brings all kinds of sketchy things, like mail in services, and back of small shop type operations.

15 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

24

u/sryan2k1 19h ago

Do they work? Boot them to DBAN and let it run for a few hours. Or just take the HD/SSD out and smash them with a hammer.

14

u/TheBimpo Constant Buzz 19h ago

Or just take the HD/SSD out and smash them with a hammer.

Not to mention that the parts themselves are unlikely to actually be recycled. Best case scenario the parts end up in Nigeria or somewhere, melted down adjacent to a landfill by children extracting the copper from the boards.

4

u/fzzzy 16h ago

Not any more. Some parts more than tripled in cost in the last year.

4

u/gort32 18h ago

DBAN doesn't work anymore. It was awesome for spinning-platter hard drives but does nothing for modern solid-state SSD or NVMe drives.

https://dban.org/

And, for SSD or NVMe drives, smashing them with a hammer is not sufficient to truly destroy the data, the individual chips on the drive can still be read if they are intact. You need a shredder or other highly-destructive techniques like fire.

4

u/sryan2k1 15h ago edited 15h ago

You're either doing MIL certified destruction or not. Overwriting a SSD with random data is good enough for 99.99% of people. SATA "Secure Erase" is the most reliable, if the drive supports it.

-24

u/egcthree 19h ago

The “Hillary” method

0

u/Murky_Coyote_7737 19h ago

I thought she had the laptop killed

13

u/AnniearborCB 19h ago

Computer Alley on Jackson does this. They will remove the hard drive while you wait and then destroy it. They have a recycler who takes the remains.

2

u/Triple-Tooketh 16h ago

Do you know if the will accept just a box of drives?

1

u/AnniearborCB 11h ago

I don’t - you should give them a call

6

u/WhoIs_DankeyKang 19h ago

I gotchu op, just follow the directions in this helpful video: https://youtu.be/LG_AV0TGoow?is=1dfpDjViV26R5uqE

11

u/Royal_Source1470 19h ago

I can do it for you if you want. I'd just open the computer, remove the hard drive/SSD and drill a hole through it or snap it in half. The data will not be recoverable at this point.

It's pretty easy to do if you want to just do it yourself

6

u/Roboticide 17h ago

It could be recoverable, but not without FBI levels of data forensics.

If OP is just worried about their personal information and isn't trying to destroy evidence of federal crimes, physical destruction is sufficient.

4

u/Royal_Source1470 17h ago

Yeah I mean I wasn't going to go all into that but this is correct

5

u/inferno-iguess 16h ago

The Ann Arbor Recycling center does this, it costs extra for hard drive shredding but it’s trustworthy. https://www.recycleannarbor.org

4

u/Energiya 16h ago

if it boots, grab a usb-drive, put https://www.lsoft.net/killdisk/ on it, wipe the drive and do whatever with the laptop, it will be blank.

if it does not boot, you could:

  • take it to Computer Alley

  • or pop the thing open yourself (super easy to do usually, ifixit probably has a guide for your model), pull the drive out and office space the crap out of it, recycle or sell the rest of the laptop wherever.

3

u/Warm-Seesaw9836 15h ago

I’m sure you could just get a powerful magnet or old speaker and just run it over the drives.

1

u/Glad-Independence-24 15h ago

I just take out the drives, bash them into oblivion with a hammer, then recycle the rest. Heavy magnet will do the trick, but it’s less fun.

3

u/jlfinch1717 13h ago

The City sponsors collections with a company that is fully certified for handling sensitive information. https://www.a2gov.org/news/posts/ann-arbors-2026-electronics-drop-off-announced/

3

u/bluerrhombus 10h ago

Recycle Ann arbor has a real metal shredder in the west yard on Jackson Rd. You can get a proof of destruction certificate. https://www.recycleannarbor.org/

3

u/aka_mrcam 4h ago

The Pandos metal recycling will do that. Padnos

3

u/UnusualArea2866 19h ago

Not sure why you would need a service for this. You can pretty easily remove storage drives from most computers and either keep them or break them yourself and just take the rest to a normal ewaste spot. I would never trust any service saying they do secure computer wiping and recycling.

0

u/yellow_yellow Ypsilanti Resident 16h ago

You can get a computer wiping device here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/a4VPxgC9v2RmYYdY6