Cleaning Hard Drive

[txlonghorn4x4]

I am selling someone my Dell laptop, and need some guidance on how to clean the hard drive. The OS is Windows XP. Thanks for the info!

 

[Anastasis]

step 1) remove HDD
step 2) smash with hammer


Seriously, I goofed up and formatted one of my drives without first copying some pictures off it. The wife was none pleased. I downloaded some program off the net that scrubbed the formatted disk for files and you would be surprised what you can find lingering around even after a format and clean install...files, pictures, temp internet files, etc. That convinced me that the only way to be 100% sure is to physically destroy the HDD. They have programs that will format than rewrite over the whole disc and format, repeat, etc...but if you have sensitive info on there, then destroy the thing.

That being said, I sold the wife's old desktop with just a clean install.

 

[NCAAFBALLROX]

Anastasis, you forgot part 3: Burn the chips.

Seriously.

If the FBI wanted to take your smashed HD & put it back together, believe me... you'll be in GitMo before you can say "US Constitution".

 

[getBent()]

There's a shareware program called Mutilate that will write over your hard drive so files are unrecoverable by non-FBI. It would be best to actually take out the hard drive, make it a slave to another machine, "Mutilate" it, and then re-install the OS, but you'll probably be ok Mutiliating all non-OS files.