Best way to make sure data is gone before selling HDD?

[SKreme]

I would like to sell 2 of my hard drives. Before I do so, I would like to make sure that my data can not be recovered by the guy who buys it from me. What should I do to achieve this? What programs can I use? Thanks for your help!

 

[wolluf]

http://www.killdisk.com/features.htm

 

[Frank4d]

I have used Killdisk suggested above. It does the job.

 

[SKreme]

The drives are SATA. I may be mistaken but it looks like killdisk only works with IDE and SCSI... Any more suggestions???

 

[edfair]

Manufacturer's diagnostic disk may have a low level/zero fill utility.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[paulrw1]

Down load System Mechanic 5 (

http://www.iolo.com).

Install it. Under Protection there is something called drive scrub. You will need one floppy disk (It builds a bootable floppy). Follow the on screen directions. System Mechanic can be used for free for 30 days, without ANY limits. I LOVE this program!

Drive scrub meets gov't and military specs for safely destroying data prior to getting ride of your hd. and should work no matter what type of drive you have.

 

[knowledgeisnetworkin]

First shoot it with an M-16, then burn it to a crisp.

 

[SKreme]

Paul- I only want to erase one of the hard drives in the computer. Will it erase both drives or only the one I choose?

 

[paulrw1]

SKreme
No, you should be able to choose which drive9s). You will also be able to choose the number of time to re write the drive.

To start the process you will create a floppy diskettre. Just follow the on-screen directions.

 

[wolluf]

killdisk recognises my SATA drive.

 

[user1kostya]

If you're technically inclined, you can do things manually via KNOPPIX.

Just boot into it, and then run
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=64M count=10000000

This will zero out /dev/hda rather quickly. Of course, you need to be sure that /dev/hda is the drive you want.

Another linux program 'wipe'

http://wipe.sourceforge.net/

can do more elaborate overwrites.