The Importance of Hard Drive Destruction

The investment in new computers, laptops, and other devices allows organizations and individuals to upgrade to new products with better features. Yet, old computers should never get tossed out in the dumpster. Placing them into the trash puts all the potentially sensitive data on those devices at risk – anyone can pull something out of a dumpster and, with a bit of knowledge, access unsecured (and sometimes secured) information. 

What Are the Risks?

The hard drive of a computer is the main storage area. It’s here that a great deal of information remains, accessible to you or anyone with access to it. Having a simple password on a computer doesn’t provide you with enough protection to eliminate the risk of others accessing this data. Consider a few reasons why you need hard drive destruction if you’re replacing an old computer.

1. Destruction goes much further than deleting: It’s a common misconception that simply deleting files is enough to protect your personal or business information from thieves. Deleting data doesn’t completely erase it as there are methods to restore most data types. 
2. Making the data no longer recoverable: Consider the data on your hard drive. It may contain saved passwords from websites you’ve visited. It may include sensitive files and documents you’ve downloaded, created, or otherwise used. With hard drive destruction, all this data is destroyed. It is no longer accessible to anyone who tries to dig into it. 
3. Shredding ensures compliance: In a business setting, there may be very specific rules about how data – especially that of your customers, employees, or patients – is managed, including full compliance with privacy laws, FACTA, HIPAA, HITECH, and GLBA. You may also need to prove that such data was destroyed, which means having documentation of what’s occurred. 

Hard drive destruction means the actual hard drive is removed from the computer and then destroyed, often through shredding. Like shredding a piece of paper, there’s no way to put it back together to access that information again. All that material is no longer accessible from personal data to company records, and your risks are eliminated. 

Crown Information Management Works with you to Manages the Process

Crown Information Management provides full hard drive destruction services. Depending on the number of drives you have, we can destroy them at your location or at our destruction facility.

• Depending on the service selected you may receive locked containers to store your hard drive in until pick-up is arranged for them. Either way, you may witness the destruction process.
• A full chain of custody is provided – helping you know exactly who had access to the hard drive through the process of destruction.

You don’t have to worry about what happens to your hard drive and valuable information. Instead, trust Crown Information Management with the process. 

For complete destruction of hard drives, put our team to work for you. Call Crown Information Management at 800-979-9545 or contact us online to schedule a pick-up or learn more about the process.