[hellodave123]

Hello. I've got a mobile phone, and two memory cards that i need to destroy, in a manor as to make the data never readable. With one of the memory cards ive pulled it apart, cracked the chips inside it, but i think itll still be readable by pro's. The other memory card is in tact, hopefully waiting for your advice.

How do i completely destroy memory cards and mobile phones so that data on them is impossible to retain?

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A big magnet will do. A big hammer to smash it.
I don't know if DBAN will work on a memory card. Never tried it

[123Runner]

A big magnet will do. A big hammer to smash it.
I don't know if DBAN will work on a memory card. Never tried it

[starjax]

WHY?

[fortune82]

im with starjax here

[123Runner]

I was tempted to ask the same thing, Why? Camera can be donated, and you can always use memory cards. I just figured, why question what people do. Especially this.

[Troy]

Why is a good question - I'd like to know too! But a big hammer should do the trick And some scissors, see if you can snip things up (like a credit card you want to destroy). 123Runner, what camera are you talking about?

[123Runner]

Long day! Sorry mobile phone.

Notice that the original poster has not responded?

[hellodave123]

VERY SORRY FOR NOT REPLYING, I've been away out of town. On the phone's memory, and the memory card is data i don't want to be accessible by ANY means, not even the greatest most advanced means. Now the memory cards ive crushed into many pieces and discarded, which whilst still readable, i don't think anyone will ever try.

The phones are where I'm stuck. How do i make the phone memory and the data that was previously on it, completely unreachable? If i just completely obliterate the phone with a hammer and pliers etc, will that do the job or not?

[Adrenalin]

I would also ask, why? If it's adult stuff or something silly like that, then why bother destroying it? I'm guessing you have some sort of material/business plan/bright idea on there you going to copyright and make money out of, am i right?

I saw a PC Format once where they did a test to see if they could recover data from a HDD that was dropped, soaked in water and then hammered to shreds, and they still got data from it because some of the discs ([cylinders] not sure what to call them) were still fine. As for the phone, a phone stors everything on the eeprom which is 6/10 the biggest chip on the phone thesedays glued on with small balls of solder underneath. just destroy that and i am sure no one is going to dig in the rubbish, pick up all your shreds and try fixing them :/ you're a bit to paranoid for your own good here mate.

[hellodave123]

THis large chip is it one of the black things? If so its proving extremely hard to break. I have the green circuit board thing exposed in front of me, and the stuff on its proving hard to destroy, even with pliers, a hammer and a few other random things.

[Johanna]

And I'm sure you are also aware that some of the data you are trying to destroy resides at the phone company that provided service for that phone?
Johanna

[hellodave123]

No im not aware of the above, hows that work?

[Adrenalin]

muhahaaha Johanna, you've just thrown a whole new spanner into the works. LOL. This might end up being a mighty long thread with the user going to the phone company and smashing their servers

[hellodave123]

Well the phones and memory cards are no longer, i even sneakily disguised the pieces in many layers of common household waste. I'd appreciate someone explaining to me the above couple posts please.

[Adrenalin]

I think what Johanna meant was that the data that comes to the phone first goes through your service provider. i.e. you send sms > goes to service provider (e.g. vodaphone) > goes to recepiant [scuse the spelling].