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Just taking a sharp point to it and scratching several times will do a pretty good job, and you have the added bonus of zillions of pretty light-reflecting bits of detritus all over your workspace until the next good cleanup. Can't break 'em, huh? I haven't tried lately, but I snapped a commercial CD in half in the late 80s (it was by a cult group and I was going to make damn sure it never got on the air). dl Robert Hodge wrote: > Toss it in a microwave oven and turn it on for 2 seconds. The CD will be > rendered totally unusable. ( Watch what happens ) > > It won't hurt the microwave. > > BH > >>>> [log in to unmask] 4/6/2007 9:58 AM >>> > This may be an odd question considering that it's pretty much the > opposite of what most of us normally do, but I was wondering if anyone > had any tips on how to destroy a CD-R. Say, for example, you had a CD > (data or audio) with sensitive material on it that you didn't want to > just throw in the trash and hope that no one ever found it and played > it. Yes, I know that ending up in a landfill wouldn't do it any good, > but that wouldn't necessarily make it unplayable. I'm reminded of a > huge lot of cassettes that my brother and I found in a dump around > 1980 that we took home to record over, and we found that they were > recordings of some kind of courtroom cases, probably stuff we never > should have heard. We were too young to be interested in them and > just recorded over them (I still have some of those same tapes, and > yes, they still play), but still, whoever just chucked them in the > trash was being rather sloppy, I'd think. > > So anyway, back to the CD problem. Last night I tried to break one in > half, thinking that since it was plastic, it would snap in two if bent > hard enough, but no. The thing was nearly impossible to break. I > tried using a cabinet door for leverage, but that still didn't bend it > enough to break. I did manage to warp the surface and the inner gold > layer enough that its data probably wouldn't be recoverable, but the > more trouble it gave me, the more I began to wonder if any of you guys > out there had a specific procedure in place for getting rid of CDs > other than just chucking them. I also tried cutting it in half with > some needle-nose pliers and taking a lighter to the writeable surface, > and while this did some damage, it still wasn't what I'd consider the > data equivalent of using a paper shredder. Certainly not efficient or > easy, either. > > Any thoughts? And no, before anyone thinks I have a CD full of super > secret scary government files or something, don't worry. It was just > a back-up of personal correspondence and journal entries that I didn't > need anymore (I made a more updated back-up). I know this isn't > specifically a recorded sound-related question, but it could be, you > know, if one were to have a recording on CD-R like the ones I > described above. > >