| Dogs Rule said: Will scratching the internal disks with a screwdriver be enough to render them completely unreadable? Do I risk coming into contact with dangerous materials myself? Anyways, Thanks for the help guys. Much appreciated. :) |
I don't think scratching them will be enough, you'll need to make sure you do something capable of cracking or breaking the disc in general. Since the internal discs don't work like a CD/DVD, HDD discs are dependant on magnetic fields, so a scratch will not affect the data. A crack or break in the disc causes major problems because is will create discontinuities in the magenetic fields, making them completely unreadable.
On older HDD drives there is a possibility to come into contact with lead, mercury (which should be highly unlikely from a drive made in the 90's) and there are some potentially other harmful materials that are used a fire retardant materials (mainly PBB's and PBDE's). I wouldn't be too worried about any other harmful materials. The ones that would most likely be there are only heavy metals, so you should just make sure you wash your hands well before eating/smoking/etc.
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