What is the best way to destroy and discard old hard drives?

[Ineeda]

This might be a silly question or one that's been answered a million times before, so I thank you in advance. Do I hammer nails into them and just toss in the trash? Boil them in oil? Include them in the used kitty litter trash? I'm bringing the other parts of the computers to the city's recycling center, but don't want the hard drives accessible.

[hobbit709]

1. If they had anything important on them

I'd wipe them with a NSA standard wipe utility.
I found that dropping them from about 10 feet up onto concrete pretty much kills them afterwards.

[ChromeFoundry]

2. Here is a quick guide to DBAN...

Requires a 32MB USB flash drive (or you can burn the Live CD) and boot the image from it.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/install-dban-to-a-usb-flash-drive-using-windows/

[trotsky]

3. Another vote for DBAN here.

I've used it to dispose of drives containing sensitive corporate data.

[backscatter712]

4. DBAN works!

It's the gold-standard for wiping hard drives with sensitive info so the info stays gone!

After that, recycle the drive. E-waste is becoming a nasty environmental problem.