Have you noticed that you still have a large amount of floppy disks? You don't know the nature of the data they contain, but are you still afraid to throw it away? This tutorial shows you a few simple steps to safely shred your floppies, based on the level of security you want.
Steps
Step 1. Get a very strong magnet, such as a neodymium magnet
Wipe it carefully on both sides of your floppies. In this way all the sectors on the disk will lose the data stored inside them, making it unusable.
Step 2. Take the floppy disk out of the plastic case and cut it using scissors
The more and smaller the pieces you reduce it to, the more difficult it will be to rebuild the disk. Do not cut the disc following any particular design, do it in a completely random way.
Step 3. Take the floppy disk out of the plastic case, remove the central metal part, then insert the magnetic disk into a shredder machine
Step 4. Burn them
For many years this has been the method used by the Government of the United States of America to destroy classified material. In this case, however, make sure you do so in complete safety. Use a fireplace or sturdy metal trash can placed outdoors in a safe area. If you decide to burn your floppies outdoors make sure there is no wind, the last thing you want is to start a fire unintentionally.
Advice
- The method of writing on Floppy disk uses a magnetic field, the same magnetic field is also able to erase the data contained in the disk.
- A careful destruction of the floppy disk is recommended, so that the magnetic disk is reduced into small pieces of equal size. In this way, in fact, rebuilding the disk becomes practically impossible.
Warnings
- Make sure the data on the floppy you are about to destroy is no longer needed.
- Burning plastic components such as floppy disks releases toxic chemicals into the atmosphere.
