I saw some old hard drives in the I.T. department the other day and asked if I could have them to rip the magnets out. Sadly the answer is no because they all get sent off to be destroyed securely.
A few days later they came back to me and said I can pull them apart at work, recover the magnets and return all the other parts so the remains can be destroyed (we have some sensitive data, but you'd have to be real keen to try and get some of that data of an opened, half destroyed HDD).
So my dilemma is this: being excited to possibly get a few magnets, I saw the IT guy again today, he then took me past the few drives I had been looking at and took me to a wheelie bin full of 100+ (probably triple that) hard drives. "Oh my" I said, so many magnets, however it's about to be sent of to secure disposal "soon". I don't know how many days away is "soon" - IT aren't sure either.
I've love to have a working bee where a few people could all pull them apart, but these drives cannot leave the premises (unless in secured bin) and I can't get anyone else on the premises either. Such a waste
![Sad :(](./images/smilies/icon_sad.gif)
Thanks for letting me vent my spleen. I knew people here would understand such a waste of good magnets. Other people at work think I'm crazy.