How do I safely do a full hard-drive wipe on my computer?

Answer 1

Repartition, then format the drive. Repeat this process twice and it should do the trick.

If you are throwing it away, use a magnet on it and then drill some holes through the drive's platter.

Answer 2

Put in the livecdrom of PCLinuxOS, reboot os it loads, and hit the 'install' icon, on the desktop...

That will open up a hard drive partitioner and you can do the deed in about 30 seconds!

OR, get Gnome Part Ed, aka GPartEd, FREE, that is only 29 Mb. and rivals Partition manager for being very good, with most of the filesystems available!

Free DLs!

Answer 3

So that way it is completely wiped? If you format the drive, information still remains. There are programs that you can get on the internet that claim to wipe the drive completely, but I've never used them.

Answer 4

hey, if u want to wipe all the data then make sure u r taking the back up. there are lots of tools and software around such as norton's disk utilities. Formatting of the disk will wipe all the data and make the disk a fresh one again,
bye.

Answer 5

Boot in to your Windows install disk and run the built in format option.

Answer 6

if u wanna format it make sure its not containing ur windows
other wise u can use file shreddrs.there is another software called 'free diskclean' try that

Answer 7

create a cd with the app. 'boot and nuke' on it(avail. @ majorgeeks or snapfiles) insert into cdr, cold boot, and presto! you got nuthin'. it OVERWRITES everything, multiple times.

Answer 8

format your hard drive.

Answer 9

Depends what you mean by "safely"...