Resolved [Destroy data on 3.5 inch floppy disks before disposing]

Windows 7
How do I make old floppies disks unreadable without an A drive on my new pc? They have confidental information and I don't want to just put them in recycling.

 

I usually cut 'em in half with a large pair of tin snips. Even if you don't cut them all the way in half, as long as you cut though the recording media in three of four places all the way to the metal hub will make it way to much trouble to be worth trying to read the data.

When I'm out in the country, I've also been know to through them in the bonfire. They melt pretty quick. Try to stay out of the fumes though. No telling what they might do to your lungs, or brain.

 

You could do that easier, without physical labor, if you have some powerful magnet. Floppy disk is a magnetic media, and one could quickly erase floppies by sweeping them with magnet. But I am pretty sure, that e.g. some refridgerator magnet is not powerful enough.

If I would need to erase several floppies, I would do that with demagnetizer, which is a device for demagnetizing recording heads of cassette decks.

 

If you'd like to continue using your old 3.5" floppies, instead of destroying them, you can find external USB 3.5" floppy drives on Amazon for as little as $6.

 

Very old files, going to use a tin snip to destroy.