Data destruction · South Bend
Hard drive wiping and destruction in South Bend, with a certificate.
Old hard drives and SSDs pile up because nobody is sure what to do with them. Drop them in the bin at the counter, no appointment needed. Pick a secure wipe for $10 a drive or physical destruction for $20, and every job comes with a numbered Certificate of Data Destruction that lists each drive by serial number and can be verified online.
Mon - Thu 9:00 AM - 5:30 PM · Friday By appointment. 746 S Arnold St Suite 3, South Bend: the black door with the logo on it, straight ahead when you pull in, up the steps.
★★★★★ 4.9 on Google · Featured on ABC57 News · Locally owned · Walk-ins welcome
Who this is for
- Retiring an old PC or laptop and the drive is still inside it
- A business clearing out a closet of old computers and loose drives
- A dead drive that still has your whole life on it
- Selling, donating or handing down a computer
- External and backup drives you have replaced
- A box of drives nobody has wanted to deal with
Why deleting files or a factory reset is not enough: deleting a file, emptying the recycle bin or resetting Windows mostly just removes the directory entry, and the actual data sits on the drive until something happens to overwrite it. Free recovery software can bring a lot of it back in minutes, which is exactly what happens to drives that end up at a thrift store or in a dumpster.
Two options
Wipe it and keep it, or destroy it.
Priced per drive, the same for one drive or a box of them. The rest of our flat prices are on the pricing page.
| Option | Per drive | What happens | Drive comes back? | Works on a dead drive? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Secure wipe | $10 | Software erase to the NIST SP 800-88 Rev. 1 purge level, run from a controlled boot environment, then read back to confirm it is blank. The drive comes back to you empty and reusable. | Yes, blank and reusable | No. The drive has to respond so we can verify the erase. |
| Physical destruction | $20 | The platters, or the memory chips on an SSD, are destroyed, and what is left goes to an electronics recycler. The drive does not come back. | No, it is recycled | Yes. Dead drives go this route. |
Not sure which one? If you want the drive back, wipe it. If you never want to think about it again, or it is dead, destroy it. Either way the certificate is the same. The NIST reference describes the wipe method we use; it is not a certification, and we are not a licensed recycler. Drives we destroy go to an electronics recycler.
The paperwork
What the certificate shows.
Every job, one drive or fifty, gets a numbered Certificate of Data Destruction. It is the thing you hand to an auditor, a client, a landlord or your own records.
- A certificate number, so it can be looked up later
- Each drive, listed by serial number
- The method used on each drive: wiped or destroyed
- The date it was done
- A QR code and a verification page anyone can check online
Businesses: same price per drive, one certificate per batch listing every drive by serial number. Bring a box. If you are clearing out whole computers, we pull the drives at the counter, and we buy working business-class machines for cash or store credit toward tested refurbished replacements.
Related
While you are retiring a computer.
Sell your laptop
Cash or store credit for used computers, working or not, with the drive wiped.
See more →Refurbished computers
Tested, warrantied business-class laptops and desktops.
See more →Data recovery
Need the files off it first? Honest odds before anything is done.
See more →Prices
Every flat price in one place.
See more →Common questions
Drive wiping and destruction questions
Does it matter if the drive is dead?
Only for which option you pick. A secure wipe needs the drive to power on and respond, because we read it back afterward to confirm it is blank; a drive that will not spin up or will not be recognized cannot be wiped that way. Dead drives get physical destruction instead, $20 per drive, and the certificate lists them by serial number the same as any other.
Can you wipe a whole laptop or desktop instead of just a drive?
Yes. Bring the computer in and we pull the drive at the counter. From there it is the same two options: wipe it for $10 and you get the blank drive back (or we put it back in, and the computer will need its operating system reinstalled before it is usable again), or destroy it for $20. If you are retiring the whole machine, we also buy working business-class computers for cash or store credit, and the drive is wiped as part of that.
How long does it take?
A few drives are usually done the same day you drop them off, and we text you when the certificate is ready. A bigger batch takes longer, and a large spinning drive takes longer to wipe than a small SSD. We will tell you what to expect when you drop them off rather than promise a time we cannot keep.
Do you keep any records?
The certificate number and the serial numbers on it, so the verification page keeps working if you ever need to show someone. Nothing else: we do not copy, image or look through what is on a drive before it is wiped or destroyed.
What about phones and tablets?
Phones are a different job. The storage is soldered to the board, and most phones encrypt it in a way that changes what a reset actually does. Bring the phone in and we will tell you at the counter what makes sense for it, including whether it is worth anything on trade.
Hours: Mon - Thu 9:00 AM - 5:30 PM · Friday By appointment · Sat - Sun Closed. 746 S Arnold St Suite 3, South Bend, IN 46619.
Got a drawer full of old drives? Drop them in the bin.
Our flat prices are posted on the pricing page. The one thing we never guess at is the repair itself: we look first ($60, credited to your repair), then you get a real number before any work starts. Walk in, book a time, or text us a photo of what’s wrong. Look for the black door with our logo on it, straight ahead when you pull in, up the steps; knock if it’s locked, we’re here.