OT: CD-R/DVD Backup Disposal

[Kenneth Brody]

Quoting Fairlight (Fri, 20 Oct 2006 15:19:20 -0400):

> Much is written about backing up your data.  Lots of backup solutions.
>
> My question is about disposal.  Namely, what are people doing with their
> non-rewriteable CD-R/DVD media to protect the information on it upon
> disposal?
>
> We've got a nice collection of discs we'd like to destroy.  I don't
> particularly feel like risking ruining the microwave (I have a suspicion
> that's actually an urban legend anyway).

Go to video.google.com and search for "cd in microwave" for videos
from people who actually did it.

[...]
> I'm wondering what others are doing with their media when they want to
> get rid of it for good.  Floppies and tapes were so much easier to
> destroy. You -can- bend/snap discs, but doing it manually is a bit
> tedious, not to mention rough on the fingers.

"Bulk erasers" were available.  Basically, a large electromagnet and
something to warp the magnetic field (perhaps AC current?) did a nice
job of degaussing floppies and video tapes.

> Nobody ever seems to talk about the flip side of this media.  (Pardon
> the pun, which wasn't intended.)

I wonder why someone hasn't come up with the "obvious" solution.

Yes, CD-Rs are "write once" media.  But that doesn't mean you can't
write all ones over the already-written sections of the media.  (At
least, as far as I know it doesn't.)  While you can't put aything
meaningful over the existing data, as the old data can't be erased,
I don't see why the data can't be wiped out by writing on top of it.
(Like "erasing" bad data from a punch card or tape by punching all
holes.)

Hmm..  I wonder if this can be patented?  :-)

--
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