How Do You Erase a Hard Drive

[art hellman]

How do you erase your computer's hard drive?  Im selling my desktop comp and a laptop, and I want to get all 'my' info off it before I get rid of it.  What's the best way to wipe it clean without ruining the computer(s)?

[bornindabay]

smashing it with a hammer does a great job.

[grimcity]

Are they Windows or Apples?

[art hellman]

Are they Windows or Apples?

both are PCs..windows

[picklesickshuv-it]

yeah i got one just chillin that i should sell, its only like 2 years old. PMs?  How do you erase it though?

[sinappipipo]

There are small programs that you can DL and run from a floppy disk...

If you can't do that(don't have a floppy drive) then... i don't know... There may be some cd versions or something.

OR

Format the disk (re-install windows) so it has nothing but OS in it. Then fill the HD again with porn and then format the HD again.

(Wow, that must be one of my dumbest ideas ever.)

I don't really understand why regular formatting won't do though. As soon as the dude that buys your computer puts hes own files in it your files cannot be recovered anymore. Of course, some bits from your files are left to the free disk space of the new user but he/she probably doesn't even know how to dig 'em out. Even if he - for whatever reason - wanted to...

[brooklyn brawler]

If it's a slave, right click > format.

If she's a slave, her name is Jamie Thomas.

[Math Professor]

Expand Quote

Are they Windows or Apples?

[close]

both are PCs..windows

1) Download fdisk
2) Make a bootable floppy disk
3) Copy fdisk to your bootable disk
4) Boot from the disk
5) At the command prompt type fdisk /mbr and follow the commands

[ginzberg]

The above methods do not delete any data, they merely remove the index files necesarry for locating the data.  To be completely safe (and in this day and age, who blames you) you want to first use any linux boot disk (either floppy, cd, or flash drive... i recommend tomsrtbt http://www.toms.net/rb/ for floppy, and gparted for cd)

Once booted into linux:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1M
This will zero out the drive (hda) in 1Mb chunks.  If you have a scsi drive, it may be /dev/sda. 

[Sleazy]

Assuming that you have one hard drive and you want to give the computer too her running, then you would want to reinstall and make sure you select to format the disc. Depending on your manufacturer, your computer may have came with a disc that will do this automatically for you. If you have that disc then just stick it in a reboot and select the defaults for the most part. If not then you will need a Windows OS disc and you just have to reinstall the OS. To do that:

1 - make sure your D: drive is in your boot order before your C: drive (assumes d: is cd drive)
2 - put windows disc in and restart
3 - select to reinstall and make sure you select reformat when it asks you. other than that you just leave the default unless you know the answer.

Without reinstalling you will have to try and remove all the files manually, which isn't so easy.