Can a hard disk survive a fall of over 100,000 feet?  No, but the data can be extracted from its remains.  That’s how scientists were able to find that xenon gas changes to a liquid when stirred under very low gravity.

It’s under no ordinary circumstances that a hard disk can fall 100,000 feet.  The disk in question was on board the ill-fated Columbia space shuttle, which disintegrated on re‑entry into earth in 2003.  And, as one would expect for anything that re‑enters into earth without the usual protection of wings, parachutes, and heat‑proof coatings, the hard drive was found cracked and burnt.  Specialists were able to extract 90% of the data, though.

Kind of surprising?  After all, most people’s experience with falling hard disks tends to generally involve waist-high or lower, and it’s kind of hard to get any data from it at all; one imagines involving a drop from space would make it slightly harder.  The above data retrieval is testament that you can do anything if you have the money.

From an engineering perspective, however, the above is not unusual or amazing.  Usually, when you and I drop a laptop or an external hard drive, it’s broken because the intricate machinery that composes the whole of the disk drive is out of synch.  However, the data recorded on the hard drive’s platters is still there. (If you weren’t aware, there’s a bunch of disks inside the a hard drive.  That’s why they’re often called a hard disk.)  Unless the drive with the xenon data had fallen near a refrigerator magnet, the information is still in place.  Only the total annihilation of these platters would have prevented specialists from reading the data, like melting them into an amorphous mass.

This is something one should keep in mind when getting rid of old equipment like computers.  A lot of people think that “deleting” the data or formatting the disk will get rid of the existing data.  This is not so; such actions merely remove the method for computers to locate data without disturbing the data itself.  It’s like poking a librarian’s eyes out during your first time to a foreign library: she can’t find the books you want, but the books are still there.  Now you’re stuck trying to find the books.  Some effort, time, and a couple of clues will help you in finding those books.

Savvy computer users will know this and physically attempt to destroy their drives.  One of the time‑honored ways of doing so is using a refrigerator magnet; however, this, too, is not as reliable as the amorphous mass technique.  Some use a drill to poke holes through the platters.  This is pretty effective, but there is no guarantee that information on the unaffected parts of the platter will remain unread by someone hell‑bent on extracting data.  These disks are pretty resilient.  Unless you’re willing to spend $100 or more to pulverize a disk, your best option may be full disk encryption, like AlertBoot.

Plus, the beauty of full disk encryption is that it’s a form of data protection that is perfectly good while the disk is in use as well as when you decide to ditch it.