How tough are hard drives?

Quick question for you guys:
Recently I switched out my parents hard drive for a new one, as thier were write errors on thier old drive and was having issues with it, getting unstable. Anyways thinking nothing of it, I took the drive and tossed in the garbage can, wrapped up the garbage and chucked it in the trash bin infront of my driveway. Apparently the rents had information on thier such as tax stuff, famliy photos, and CC info that they hadnterased before I worked on it,nor did they tell me that they didnt backup and formatt, so they are kind of ticked off that their personal info is "out" there so to say. Personally I didnt see a big deal becasue once it enters that garbage its pretty much gone, less somone digs through your garbage lol, which I havent seen yet out in the subbarbs. Then agian stranger things have happened... So how tough are hard drives really? I mean i know the platters inside a drive are well protected but what about the controller board? Would it be possible for somone to randomly take it out of a dump or landfill and it still work on a system? I wouldnt think so but then agian i have never head of that. Would help on my end to bring my ass out of the fire if I had an "expert" confirm my thoughts on the matter =)
Should bring around a good dicussion I think too =)
Thanks much

 

welcome to the forum ,firstly I'm no expert,there is a chance that someone can retrieve the data form the drive,its possible to replace the PCB on the drive for a working one,it just means getting hold of a similar drive,a few members here have done this and had good results,the platters and heads are a different story though,they are made within such tight tolerences any deviation from design will cause it not to function,if you imagine the size of a bit of data on the drive being only a few hundred atoms accross and grain of sand close to a million you can imagine how accurate they have to be,any dust inside the drive will cause large amounts of data to be missed.

The best way to disable a drive is to remove the foil security tab,get a hammer and nail and give the platters a few good hits,it pretty much guarantees no one but the cia will be able to read it

of someone does find the drive and get it working rather than retrieve your info,it would be more use as drive to store thier own stuff on,so it will be formatted

depending on the agle the drive landed in the trash will determin how much damage was done to the heads and platter "think record player",if it landed flat on a hard surface from a hight of around 12-24 inches the heads will have contacted the platter and rendered it useless,landing on its corner or side the drive can take a little more punishment

 

Thanks for the reply and welcome to the forums =)
I obviously dont know how it landed but Im assuming landfills in general are dirty and dusty anways =) lol Are drives made air tight or is thier a chance that dust and other goodies have seeped into the inerds of the drive? Didnt know that you could get a new PCB for a drive, but chances are that controller is shot anyways, least that would be my guess.

 

The pcb is the controller,yes they are airtight,i'm not sure if they are filled with an inert gas or vacuum,the drives I have thrown away didnt seem to be pressurized or under vacuum when I removed the foil tab.

Id look at it like this,

1.Will anyone find the drive probably not
2.If someone finds the drive would they have the skills to retrieve the data No
3.Can any Info off the drive be of any use to anyone not really
4.Will the person have a way to commit fraud without getting caught,I doubt it

If you add up all these factors you have more chance of winning the lotto than falling victim to identity or credit card fraud