I use a shredder, but there is a cheaper way too. If you take a knife and scrape some (most) of the coating off of the disk you'll make it unreadable.

 

^^ That's actually cheaper and quite effective -- even an indelible magic marker scribble on the read side of a CD will put it out of commission, and knife or razor scratches really confound readers. HPH

 

I like the idea of a shredder, since it seems so permanent. Mine says the limit is 5 sheets of paper, so I'm not sure it can handle a CD but I'll try one. Breaking them up with a hammer is a real mess; I found that out some time ago. Thanks for the ideas everyone.

 

You can either take sandpaper (or a grinding wheel or whatever) and scratch the surface or you can run them through a shredder. We shred everything at work including CD's and DVD's that might contain confidential data. It's really hard to put those puppies back together again after they've gone through a confetti shredder.

 

Just did 4 years of CDs in the shredder; that worked good and fast. Probably wore out the blades.

 

[QUOTE=dlq04,Apr 30 2007, 08:37 AM] Just did 4 years of CDs in the shredder; that worked good and fast.

 

thanks Rob, good idea; wife has that for her sewing machine.

 

Even if you always have 2 copies of important data you should also think about where you keep those copies. Having a file on both an external hard drive and on a CD/DVD won't do you any good if they are both in your house when it burns down.

Keeping separate copies at home and office, or trading backup disks with a friend or family member will protect you from fires and natural disasters as well as equipment failures.

 

I've never even thought of that.

 

cutey-pie. I've been getting by without any Starbucks since I had to save up for my external hard-drives. I'll send my address soon for that Starbucks card.