I have a couple of old laptops lying around and want to throw them away, but have been cautious to do so because of privacy concerns of data still on the hard drives. What is the best way to wipe them? Or should I take them out and physically destroy them?
They are running windows vista and 10 I think.
HDDs have some strong magnets inside that I like to salvage. Once I have those, I put the shiny plates into a ziplock bag and smash them.