If i replace my hard drive does that completely get rid of all previously deleted data on the computer?

Question

i have recently had my account details stolen due to adawre :@, and want to donate my computer to charity but dont want to take the chance of being robbed again

Answer 1

If your completely replacing the said hard drive with a brand new one then if you keep your old drive then no one can steal your info. But if you wish to erase all old data which depending on the size of your drive maybe time consuming, there is very good software that may help you erase the data but as the fellow folks on here have said lots of people can regain your information via software of even basic hardware available from places like Ebay if you know what your looking for you don't have to be a enforcment agency to gain access to snooping hardware lol. theres software out there that can do basic department of defence wipes,A maximum security (but slow) 35 pass sanitize method, based on Peter Gutmann's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory". The method is designed to erase data regardless of the disk raw encoding. It effectively removes the magnetic remnants from disk, preventing hardware recovery tools from restoring any data. NOTE: This method stops both software and hardware recovery tools.

Answer 2

Go to dban.sourceforge.net to download Darik's Boot And Nuke. Burn it to a CD and boot the computer from the CD with ONLY the hard drive you want erased connected. At the prompt type:
autonuke
This will securely (DOD standard for Secret documents) wipe ALL hard drives connected to the computer, so make sure there's nothing attached you don't want permanently deleted. It will take hours, so just let it run overnight. There are a handful of experts who might recover something from it, but short of physically destroying the hard drive it's virtually unrecoverable. Or buy another new hard drive to donate and physically destroy the old one.

Answer 3

yes it does get rid of all the data, the hard drive stores all your computers info. The best thing to do depending on how much you have on your hard drive that you want to have on your new hard drive is save the files on a USB storage device. If you have a lot of files that won't fit on a USB storage device you should get an external storage device to transfer the files over to your new hard drive. Note: you will also have to reinstall your windows operating system.

Answer 4

You don't have to get a new hard drive, download your disk's manufacturers installation software, a bootable cd or floppy and with this you can totally obliterate your present drive. It simply write Os all through the drive several times.

Otherwise, yes, get a new small drive and keep your old one for a new machine and remember to keep your anti-spyware up to date.

Answer 5

yes data are all stored on the hard drive which if replaced or destroyed is inaccessible. Deleted data tho can still b accessed if the hard drive is available cos there are programs tat can do tat.

Answer 6

Refomatting is not enough if you are donating your computer. It does not truly erase the data and somebody skilled enough could still retreive the data. You should write 0's.

Look here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,110338-page,1/article.html

Answer 7

Yes, replacing your hard drive gets rid of everything.

Answer 8

That will but that will cost some unneed spending. You can reformat your hard drive and that will wipe your hardrive clean. if you don;t know how to do that, take it to Circuit City or Best Buy. For a small fee, they will do it for you

Answer 9

Reformat your computer and you can be sure that data is gone. Or, get a McAfee Shredder to permanently take everything away.

Answer 10

YES! You wont have a problem but you should backup your hard drive often & make sure you are protecting it well