Herbert Grosshans: How to remove a hard drive from your computer

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Welcome to my personal blog. I have another blog, Herbert's Place, but that one limits me to what I sometimes want to publish, because it is mainly used to promote my books. As it says in the header, I want to use this blog to write about things that have nothing to do with my books. There is no real theme here. I'll be writing about anything that causes me to either be happy or somethings that concerns me. It could be political, travel, a hobby, or anything else. So come and visit me sometimes.

#How to remove a hard drive from your computer

To remove a hard drive from a computer is not too difficult. Why remove a hard drive? To keep your information from falling into the hands of cyber criminals when you trade in or retire your old computer. Once you give up your old computer you have no control what happens to it. Unless you want to sell your computer, don’t waste your time trying to erase all the information on your hard drive. If you want to do that, you have to get a sophisticated removal tool, because just deleting your files does not remove them from your hard drive. I tried a couple of erasing programs, but they didn’t work for me.

#How to keep your private information from falling into the wrong hands:

Physically removing the hard drive is the safest way to delete your information from your computer.

What you do with the hard drive after you take it out is up to you. Smash it with a hammer or take it apart and sell the pieces for scrap metal, or keep it as a souvenir. Once you have removed the old hard drive it is not difficult to install a new one, but this article is not about that.

I took apart my old Gateway Computer. First, of course, you have to open it up. Mine had only 2 screws holding the box together. They were in the back. Once the screws are removed, the side panel slides out.

The hard drive should not be difficult to identify. This one was in the center toward the front panel. It was held in place inside a slide-in box with 4 screws. 2 screws were easily accessible, but to remove the 2 screws facing the front I had to pry away the front face. Just take a flat screwdriver and pry it off. Once the large front is off, there is still a small panel right in the center. That one needs a bit of prying to release the plastic taps from their holes. Once that one is off, just push a thin Phillips screwdriver through the small exposed holes to reach the two remaining screws.

This is what the hard drive looks like in the slide-in box: