Best Way to Clean Hard Drive Prior To Disposal of Computer?

What is the most effective & easiest way to clean the hard drive of my computer before diposal??


Any easy routes much appreciated.

Pls use lay-man's english as I'm not sure I would understand too much techie talk;)

It's a bit of an issue if you are using the hard drive. I mean you can't wipe it entirely if you are in a Windows installation running on that drive. But there are ways around that.


Easy way if you have your original Windows disk:

- Backup your data. Double-check that your backup is viable.

- Grab your original Vista DVD or XP CD and put it in the optical drive.

- Reboot your computer. When you get "Press any key to boot from CD/DVD..." press a key. If you don't get the prompt, your CD/DVD drive isn't being polled. Some computers have "Press F12 for boot menu", in which case you should do that.

- Your computer will boot from the DVD or CD. Follow the prompts until you get to a dialog asking where you want to install. This will show your drive(s). Select the partition(s) on your drive and delete them.

- Done.

Note that an expert might conceivably retrieve the info, but it takes some effort and is expensive, thus unlikely.


If you really want to be sure, you can use a utility like Boot and Nuke http://www.dban.org/ or any number or other ones found by googling "wipe hard drive".


Another method, if the drive will never be reused, is to remove it from the computer and use a screwdriver to take it apart. Then use pliars to cut the platters in two and throw the parts in different locations.

Thanks...being extra cautious as have been victim to identy theft before so taking no chances this time;)

Although, may pass on the last option as wouldn't even know what the darn thing looks like.


Cheers!

It looks like a hard drive. ;) Seriously though something like this: http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/4717749/hard-drive2-main_Full.jpg . About 3½ inches wide. If this is a laptop it will be smaller (2½ inches wide) but basically the same.

I read something recently that said, the only really secure thing to do is to destroy the hard drive.

That's not really true. There are plenty of hard drive wipe programs that irretrievably get rid of data on a hard drive. To give you an idea of their reliability, such programs are used by the NSA and CIA, where of course destroying data is very important.


What the programs do is overwrite the hard drive with random data multiple times. After a few such passes, there's no way the original data can be retrieved.