How to wipe out hard disk?

I’m about to sell my laptop. What tool can I use to wipe out the data on the hard disk so that even DiskDoctors or GeekSquad can not restore it?

And don’t say blowtorch. I’m not talking about that kind of tool. I meant what software tool?

Take a look at this thread: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=694669 :slight_smile:

if you google

deleting data from hard disk permanently

you will get truckloads of references on the www.

probably too many choices :weyes:

there are many to choose from, but here’s 3 that should do the job safe.

  1. Killdisk
  2. BCWipe Total WipeOut
  3. CMRR Secure Erase

I like Killdisk, and have been using it for many years

Just turn the computer off :stuck_out_tongue:

Some days, Ago, my drive data accidentally deleted, but thanks to the tools they returned deleted data to me.

But here you are against of these type of tools, why?

Because

I have nothing against disk restoration tools – they are very useful for restoring accidentally deleted data. DiskDoctors does a great service restoring accidentally deleted data for people.

But I am selling my computer to someone. I don’t want that someone to be able to retrieve my personal files that had previously been on the disk.

I think killdisk can wipe from 1 to something like 35 times. The DoD standard is good enough. Anyone wanting to recover data from a DoD wipe would have to spend a literal fortune to do so. Also it would take a very, very long time

If you are using Linux then try the following by booting from a live cd :
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1M

Everything that needs to be said has been said.

Thread closed.