Electronics

A hard drive eraser is the most powerful type of degausser available. Computer hard drives are among the most difficult types of magnetic media to erase. Therefore, if you wish to degauss your hard disk drive, you must use one of these specialized devices.

Types of Hard Drive Erasers
Most hard drive erasers come in the form of hardware machinery which you place your disk drive into or on top of. An ultra powerful magnetic field then erases any and all data that has been stored on the drive. Unlike tapes and diskettes, a hard drive cannot be reused after degaussing with one of these mechanisms.

There are some software products designed specifically to erase hard drives. Software degaussers differ from degaussing machines in that they completely erase the hard drive without damaging the drive heads. This means that the drive can be reformatted.

A degaussing wand is probably the simplest, low-level hard drive eraser. It basically looks like a flat stick that you wave over the disk drive to effectively remove all data and formatting. Degaussing wands require no electricity for operation.