Never throw out old hard drives without securely destroying them, even if they don’t work

This might seem like a pain, but hard drives don’t lose their data very easily. If you want the information on a hard drive to be permanently eliminated, make sure the parts that house the data are destroyed before discarding it. This means destroying the platters and circuit board inside the hard drive completely beyond repair, which can take some effort if you’ve never done it before. There are guides online that can teach you how to securely eliminate the data on a hard drive for good, so check them out before you throw one away.