On June 26, 27 and 28, 2007, faculty and staff can drop off old hard disks, electronic media, and more at the Computation Center (COM) during the second disk destruction drive sponsored by the Information Security Office (ISO). This free service ensures that sensitive digital data are securely disposed of according to policy; it is also a good way to know that potentially toxic materials are safely handled.
Old, unused university computer hard drives may contain sensitive Category-I data and need to be destroyed correctly. It’s not enough to discard this media by simply deleting, erasing or desensitizing it. The most effective way to ensure the complete removal of data on an old hard drive is to physically destroy it. The disk destruction event provides demolition of these materials by certified vendors and the safe removal of the debris. Safe removal is an important step as the resulting particles from smashed equipment can be hazardous or toxic.
The drive will accept:
- Old hard drives
- Tapes
- CDs and DVDs
- Cassettes
- Floppy disks
- Reel-to-reel tapes
- Flash drives
- Flash memory cards
- Any other electronic media
The drive will not accept:
- paper manuals
- other technical books
Please bring a list with a rough count of the media you are dropping off. If you have a large volume of hard drives or other electronic media, you can bring them to the loading ramp in COM (go to the Data Center to notify staff to unlock the ramp). Otherwise, you can bring items to the Data Center window in the building.
This is the second drive the ISO has sponsored. In the September, 2006, drive:
- 1,886 old hard drives were destroyed
- approximately 9,000 other pieces of media were also collected
- some of the tape reels collected dated back to 1980
More information on the mandate may be found on the State of Texas Department of Information Resources Web site.
If you have any questions regarding this service, please contact the ISO.
