I have a paper shredder with a disk slot. All it does is make an all over patterned imprint across the disk. It is totally unreadable. The shredder was about $50 or so at the office supply store.
Miriam
Mike Richter wrote:
Trey Bunn wrote:
This may be an odd question considering that it's pretty much the opposite of what most of us normally do, but I was wondering if anyone had any tips on how to destroy a CD-R.
Any thoughts? And no, before anyone thinks I have a CD full of super secret scary government files or something, don't worry.
Scribe radially through the acrylic lacquer on top of the disc. One or two slashes that disturb the metallic layer will be quite enough. Forensic experts might be able to piece the fragments of sectors together again, but ordinary tools will not suffice. The directory (innermost written area) will not make sense to any standard player so even the filenames will be lost.
Breaking the disc is both difficult and dangerous. Microwaving is spectacular but slow and potentially harmful both in its effect and to the maser. I'm told that there are heavy-duty paper shredders which can handle CDs, but an Xacto knife used as above suffices for me.
Mike
Miriam Meislik Media Curator Archives of Industrial Society University of Pittsburgh 7500 Thomas Blvd. Pittsburgh, PA 15260 (412)244-7075 voice (412)244-7077 fax miriam@xxxxxxxx
http://www.library.pitt.edu/libraries/archives/archives.html http://digital.library.pitt.edu/pittsburgh/index.html
When your mouth drops open, click the shutter.
--Harold Feinstein, November 11, 2001