On Fri, 5 Mar 2010, David G. Miller wrote:
Over the years I've ended up with a pile of old hard drives. Some are unreliable; some won't even spin up and some are just REALLY old (e.g., 100s of MB size). I also inherited a couple of rifles (M-1 Garand and M-1 Carbine). I'm thinking write /dev/urandom to ones that will spin but then take the whole lot out in the country for some target practice. It may be possible to scape a little data off of what's left after the drive gets hit with a round from the Garand but I doubt if anyone will want to go to the trouble. It could also be fun.
Or, donate the drives and a cheap torx driver to the educational charity of your choice. Kids *love* taking them apart, and the magnets are quite useful!