How To Make Self Destruct Electromagnet for HD

[shfreelance]

Here's a cool idea:

1. Place a small pyrotechnic charge inside each hard drive, one just big enough to fry the internal motor and do some decent damage to the spindle. Do NOT use Thermite as others have suggested - the tin-can lid on the drive won't contain that violent of a reaction, and even the cast-metal body of the drive probably wouldn't stand up to it.
2. Wire the charge to a switch (with an activation key and big red button, of course. What if you accidentally bump the switch?)
3. Put a glass case around the activation key and the big red button. Maybe a few caution stickers for good measure.
4. ???
5. Profit!

Following the old adage that necessity is the mother of invention, what in God's name could the OP possibly be using this for? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark...

I may use your idea, lol... I have nosey neighbors,

 

[Sun Baked]

Here's a cool idea:

1. Place a small pyrotechnic charge inside each hard drive, one just big enough to fry the internal motor and do some decent damage to the spindle. Do NOT use Thermite as others have suggested - the tin-can lid on the drive won't contain that violent of a reaction, and even the cast-metal body of the drive probably wouldn't stand up to it.
2. Wire the charge to a switch (with an activation key and big red button, of course. What if you accidentally bump the switch?)
3. Put a glass case around the activation key and the big red button. Maybe a few caution stickers for good measure.
4. ???
5. Profit!

Following the old adage that necessity is the mother of invention, what in God's name could the OP possibly be using this for? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark...

I thought of shaped charges to cut the drives and platters into fragments.

But if it was really sensitive material, all they really need is to scan in a file segment off a set of drive platter fragments.

Since it may only take one file/photo fragment to put you in prison. This method may not do enough damage to the media.

 

[jampat]

Back in the day, supposedly some hard drives came with glass platters instead of aluminum. it should be relatively easy to shatter glass platters (if they are still available. A set of holes or destroying the spindle motor will not be very helpful. I have had drives recovered with a dead motor before, and single holes would only affect a small portion of the data. I have tried to erase floppy disks with neodymium magnets and couldn't even get a single error.

If you actually want to figure this out for your hardware class, you should be able to find the magnetic field (flux density?) that hard drive heads create and the distance from the platter that the heads ride. You know your EM will be 6" (or whatever) from the furthest harddrive and you need at least that magnetic field. I think (but I could be wrong) that the magnetic field will pass through the case, but you will still need one hell of a magnet as you are talking about at least a 2000:1 distance ratio and IIRC magnetism falls off with the square of the distance. This leads you to an electromagnetic 4,000,000 times the power of the write head (assuming no losses, you should probably double or triple the electromagnet power to account for these). It's a cool problem, let us know if you solve it.

EDIT: another solution could be the injection into the drives of a corrosive gas, it would be relatively safe for the external environment, but completely destroy the drives and I don't think it would be that hard to implement. This would scale nicely to N drives.

 

[Luftwaffles]

Find an old bulk tape eraser. Back in the day when magnetic tapes were a more prominent storage medium, every IT department would have a giant handheld electromagnet that could immediately wipe an entire tape by just sliding over it.

Not sure how well it would work for the aluminum platters on a hard drive, but methinks the intensity of the magnetic field would definitely be enough to mess something up.

 

[Aea]

Didn't they do something very very similar on the latest Burn Notice? Large Electromagnet + Car Battery?

 

[ejb190]

Didn't they do something very very similar on the latest Burn Notice? Large Electromagnet + Car Battery?

Yes, they did. I was thinking they were dealing with tapes, but it might have been a hard drive. Funny how they can do anything on TV.

 

[-hh]

A couple of implimentation questions come to mind.

First, how "instant" is instant?

There's a lot of things that you can do that take <5 minutes. For example, just a simple gravity drop into a bucket of electrolytically enhanced strong acid/base.

Second, does the damage done to the HDs need to be 'reversible', or is destruction OK?

Its a lot harder of a problem if you desire that the system could simply be returned to service by being reformatted. It pretty much forces you to use localized magnetic fields.

Third, permissible collateral damage?

Does the house that its in have to remain standing too? Afterall, there's few problems that can't be solved with 3-4kg of C4...but that's not particularly creative.

Fourth, to what degree can the system be modified to make the desired-to-be-destroyed HD components more accessible for destruction?

For example, if they can be pulled out and neatly arranged onto a rack, a second rack could hold an equal number of double barrel 12ga shotguns (one on each), loaded with 'door breaching' loads. To activate, just pull the lanyards on the triggers (or add electrical solenoids & circuit).

Of course, several of these then need to ask the question: how quiet (stealthy) do you need to be?

And then there's other questions: how easy does it have to be to maintain the SD system, environmental concerns, cost, etc.


-hh