Heh. I powned my old HDD 2 days ago. My long failing 80GB WD in my External Box started owning itself it sounded like, so I swapped it out for a nice Hitachi 80GB. Got all the data off the old one but what to do with it? There was some personal info on there but it wld be a pita to get it all off. Hmm *screwdriver on desk.*
Well after about 5 minutes of hell, the PCB had been scratched, there were a few holes on the top of the HDD (thin metal!), and the pins were all bent like crap.
I really don't know why people bother to format, write 0's, all that time consuming stuff when they throw out an HDD. Just destroy it, literally! HDD metal is very thin, with a few blows I was hitting platters with the screw driver lmao. They make a nice ding too like a doorbell, when struck.