My basement is a computer graveyard of older slower systems. Some work and I had thought of passing them on or selling them cheap to a school or hobbiest. My concern is the personal information on the hard drives. I can F disk the drive, but it is my understanding that this does not necessarily destroy the information on those drives. I'm aware of software that wipes or sterilizes drives, but am uncertain if newer software will run on older machines? Is it possible to connect a laptop to the old CPU and do the operation from the laptop? And will someone be able to load an OS to the wiped drive or will formatting software be necessary? Short of pulling the drive and giving the mindless thing away, what is the best solution to securing the drive and yet remain functional?
2007-02-25 12:33:42 · 7 answers · asked by tchuck64 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Desktops
get your self a wipe disk, and do a total hard drive erace
2007-02-25 12:37:17 · answer #1 · answered by duster 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
One of the better ways that I've found is to get an external drive enclosure. You can install each drive in it for wiping, then connect that unit to the laptop. If you can find an older version of the software, it should run fine on an older laptop.
Also, run the software through it's paces for a full wipe at least once, maybe twice. Then, you can use a WinXP or Win98 CD to start the install of the OS. Just get far enough along so that it formats the whole drive, then starts the file copies. That way you know the drive will boot and hold data, but it won't have a copy of the OS installed - this should alleviate any licensing issues you may have.
The only really secure way to clean out the drives is to completely demolish them. Impractical, but the software version should work allright. The more times you run it, the better it should wipe the data.
2007-02-25 12:40:07 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
IF you have information that you absolutely have to clean off, I have found no good free programs on-line.
I purchased SWIPE.
It works great but takes a long time depending on the cleaning algorithm
2007-02-25 12:38:22 · answer #3 · answered by BILL@CA 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Google up a free program called killdisk,it will wipe the hardrives completly.
2007-02-25 12:38:26 · answer #4 · answered by dcam47 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Format them several times and if the HDD's are SATA or IDE-O they should run all programs and OS's.
2007-02-25 12:39:53 · answer #5 · answered by CG 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Is there really anything that critical on them?
f-disc or remove and destroy
2007-02-25 12:40:58 · answer #6 · answered by Robert F 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If it is truly sensitive information I would not trust anything but a sledgehammer.
2007-02-25 12:39:06 · answer #7 · answered by Heatmizer 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋