Permanent and Complete HD Erase

[tinkertech]

Can some one point me to a utility I can used to permanently and completely erase a hard drive. I am about to upgrade my HD and I don't want any of my old drive stuff to be "recovered" since I did taxes and other personal data on it.

If at first you don't succeed, reboot!

 

[stduc]

Are you planning to sell the old HD? If not, I don't see it as an issue, keep it as a spare. If your planning to trash it, take a hammer to it - that's pretty effective!

If your planning to sell it, then download the manufacturers drive test utility and zero fill the drive a few times. You could verify how effective this has been using a utility called getdataback from

http://www.runtime.org

Depending on how worried you are you could use Norton Utilities instead. But these cost.

There is also the McAfee shredder of course.

Or google for freeware/shareware

 

[tinkertech]

THansk for the answer; actually I plan on reselling them that is why I need to deep-clean these drives. I am looking at "Killdisk"; ever heard of it?

If at first you don't succeed, reboot!

 

[smah]

Before you get rid of your old hard drives...
thread751-450147

 

[SkipCox]

The value of an old used hdd is nil compared to your privacy.

Just take it out to the driveway, smack it a few times with a big hammer...

I'm not trying to be cute; a determined person can retrieve data and most just don't care as long as the hdd works. Writing 0's many times works pretty good but the hammer or incinerator always does the job.

Up to you...

Skip

http://www.skipcox.net

http://scc.i8.com