Do you ever get paranoid?

[streaker69]

No hard drive has ever left my house in a usable state.

I build my own PCs so they are in a constant state of upgrade. I mount some the older drives in my newest PC or a backup PC until they either die or are of such a small storage capacity that they are no longer useful.

Laptops usually get used until they are not worth fixing or are just to old to be worth while.

I'll stock pile the drives a little past there useful date then at some future time, out come the big hammers. The drives are reduced to crumpled metal with shards of the hard drive platters rattling around.

All other removable media is also stockpiled until it can be destroyed properly.

I destroy all my drives once they're out of service as well. But the drives in all the laptops here, my backup drive that's in the safe and some other drives are running full drive encryption with TrueCrypt. A friend of mine has melted drives in his forge, I've drilled through drives with a drill press, crushed them in a large vice and cut them in half with sawzall's. I've also torn them apart and made a nice mobile out of the platters.

[RandomTask]

No hard drive has ever left my house in a usable state.
...
I'll stock pile the drives a little past there useful date then at some future time, out come the big hammers. The drives are reduced to crumpled metal with shards of the hard drive platters rattling around.

All other removable media is also stockpiled until it can be destroyed properly.

Same here, except I dismantle the HDs for the neodymium magnets, then I run the platters through the belt sander.
CDs and DVDs get microwaved.

...I've also torn them apart and made a nice mobile out of the platters.

I've thought about making wind chimes from old platters.

[DonM55]

CDs and DVDs get microwaved.

They also make great targets.

[streaker69]

I've thought about making wind chimes from old platters.

Don't bother, the 3.5" and the 2.5" drives don't make any kind of pleasant sound at all. They might make a nice scare crow around a garden though because they're highly reflective.

I have some 5.25" drives out in the garage that I haven't taken apart yet, I don't know if they'll make a ringing sound or not.

[RandomTask]

I have some 5.25" drives out in the garage that I haven't taken apart yet, I don't know if they'll make a ringing sound or not.

Careful... some of those old ones have glass platters! I have even had some glass 2.5" drives.

[Tequila Sunrise]

Why, what do you mean? Is somebody watching us?

[streaker69]

Why, what do you mean? Is somebody watching us?

Not us, only you!

[duqjeep2010]

Don't worry about those C130's from the 911th. The 911th is lucky to exist at all anymore they have made the brack list consistently and Tim Murphy keeps fighting to keep it open. I have been all over that base and none of their C130'2 are nothing other than medevac and and cargo hauling.

[SharpShooter88]

They also make great targets.

I like trying to put an arrow inside the spindle hole at 20 yards....makes for great fun, a hell of a mess though!

[mechanic87]

I was merely affirming that I know of the existence of unmarked black helicopters, but cannot provide any further details than that.[/QUOTE]

When I was living in MD back in 1989, the DEA had a black AH-64 flying for a short time out of the Hagerstown airport. I worked on the airport and rode a tug over to the Air Guard ramp (things were a lot less formal before 9-11) and spoke with a guy about my age in jeans with a high & tight hair cut. He told me they were searching for pot fields in MD. The chopper had DEA written on both pilot doors in bright white.....only problem was it was 1/2 inch lettering. I also asked if the Hellfire rockets were real (appeared to be two on each stub wing) and the mechanic said " Oh no! and there is most certainly not 1200 rounds of 20mm in the drum!"