I have a couple of old laptops lying around and want to throw them away, but have been cautious to do so because of privacy concerns of data still on the hard drives. What is the best way to wipe them? Or should I take them out and physically destroy them?
They are running windows vista and 10 I think.
There are companies you can pay to physically shred your disk drives. You have to be able to trust them of course for this to work.
Or if you want to DIY, you can drill or smash your drives. Just wear eye protection, etc. Making the drives inoperative like this is the only thing I’d trust, but you can also software-wipe them first.
Great tip on the eye protection! Metal splinters are a nightmare for any future MRI’s one might need.