• Backup Practices
  • Backup Bookmarks
  • Backup Software
  • Data Loss & Theft
  • External Drives
  • Online Backup
  • Reviews
  • Tutorials
  • Website Backups

FileSlinger Backup Blog

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • E-zine
  • Questions?
  • Review Policy
  • Comment Policy
  • Disclosures

FileSlinger™ Backup Reminder 7-30-04: Microwave CDs

July 30, 2004 by Sallie Goetsch Leave a Comment

Dear FileSlinger clients, colleagues, and friends:

It’s time to back up your data again. It’s also time I thought of something really original and new to say in this reminder notice, but all I have for you this week is a tidbit on how to destroy your data…which, of course, you might want to know, given what’s happened to our right to privacy.

The Ur-Guru was watching “Unscrewed” on his laptop last week and I caught a segment about ways to make sure your data is totally destroyed. A few were rather fanciful, such as the liquid nitrogen combined with a sledgehammer.

However, almost everyone has a microwave, and it turns out that if you microwave CDs on the “popcorn” setting, they arc into artistic craquel patterns and become completely unusable. (The microwave appears to survive just fine.)

In general, fire is a more effective way to destroy a hard drive than water.

Data recovery centers have been able to retrieve data from computers that were buried under water or mud, but fire is much harder on a disk. (Some firefighting chemicals also damage electronic equipment.) This is one reason you should make sure your computer is properly ventilated and doesn’t get too hot. Laptop users need to be especially careful: get a laptop with feet and put it onto a hard surface where air can circulate under it. (Your lap is the right height for using a laptop, but it has the wrong topography.)

I’ll be back on Friday with more random backup remarks and another reminder. Until then, may your data be safe!

Sallie

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: CD & DVD Backups

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search

Google Ads

Categories

  • Announcements
  • Archiving
  • Backup Bookmarks
  • Backup Devices
  • Backup Practices
  • Backup Software
  • CD & DVD Backups
  • Data Loss & Theft
  • Data Recovery
  • Drive Failure
  • Drive Imaging
  • E-mail Backups
  • Events
  • External Drives
  • Flash Drives
  • Guest Bloggers
  • Hardware Failure
  • Humor
  • Mac Backups
  • Mobile Backup
  • Network Storage
  • Offsite Backups
  • Online Backup
  • RAID
  • Removable Drives
  • Reviews
  • Storage
  • Tape Backup
  • Traveling Backups
  • Tutorials
  • Website Backups

Tags

Elsewhere

  • BACN
  • East Bay WordPress Meetup
  • Rhymes with Sketch
  • The Author-izer
  • WP Fangirl

Find Sallie Online

Backup Poll

When was the last time you backed up your computer?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...
  • Polls Archive

Tags

.MAC Acronis Amazon S3 annual archive backup Backup Bookmarks BACN Bart-PE Buffalo carbon copy cloner Carbonite CloudBerry Cloud Computing Coding Horror CrashPlan disaster recovery Dmailer DriveImage DriveSavers Dropbox DVD Flickr Ghost Google Docs Iron Mountain Karen's Replicator LinkedIn LiveVault Maxtor Memeo Mozy RAID Rebit reminder Retrospect Seagate social backup Spare Backup SyncBack SyncBack Freeware Titan Backup WordPress XHD year-end backup Zoogmo

Copyright © 2023 · Metro Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in