how do you completely blank out a harddrive?

Answer 1

Remove it, smash it, pour gas on it set it on fire, then put it in the trash compacter. That should do it!

Answer 2

You need to run a program that overwrites every sector of the drive. Just doing a reformat or a reinstallation of Windows will not do the trick. I think Norton has a tool to do that, but here's a link to a free program that's used by a lot of IT professionals to wipe hard drives: http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Answer 3

DBAN=Darik's Boot and Nuke = DBAN=Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction. = http://dban.sourceforge.net + Note: Also see = BootDisks - PC Support - Essential Utilities = http://bootdisk.com - - http://dban.sourceforge.net

BCWipe = http://www.jetico.com/index.htm#/bcwipe.htm

Autoclave = hard drive sterilization on a bootable floppy = http://staff.washington.edu/jdlarios/autoclave/

PC INSPECTOR e-maxx = (FREEWARE) = http://www.pcinspector.de/emaxx/uk/welcome.htm = PC INSPECTOR™ e-maxx only deletes entire hard drives.

Answer 4

EMP/HERF/Shock Pulse Generators
Shock wave generators are capable of producing focused acoustic or electromagnetic energy that can break up objects such as kidney stones and other similar materials. EMP generators can produce pulses of electromagnetic energy that can destroy the sensitive electronics in computers and microprocessors. Destabilized LCR circuits can produce multi megawatt pulses by using an explosive wire disruptive switch. These high power pulses can be coupled into antennas, conic sections, horns etc for very directional effects. Research is currently being undertaken to disable vehicles thus avoiding dangerous high speed chases. The trick is to generate a high enough power pulse to fry the electronic control processor modules. This could be a lot simpler if the vehicle was covered in plastic or fiber glass rather than metal. The shielding of the metal body offers a challenge to the researcher to develop a practical system. A system could be built that could do this but would be costly, large and produce collateral damage to friendly targets.

Otherwize under normal nominal conditions data is NEVER ERASED IT IS OVER WRITTEN.

Undeletion is a feature for restoring computer files which have been removed from a file system by file deletion. Deleted data can be recovered on many file systems, but not all file systems provide an undeletion feature. Recovering data without an undeletion facility is usually called data recovery, rather than undeletion.

Not all file systems or operating systems support undeletion. Undeletion was supported by MS-DOS, but is not supported by most modern UNIX file systems. The ext2 file system has an addon program called e2undel which allows file undeletion.

Undeletion can help prevent users from accidentally losing data on their machines, but can also provide a computer security risk, since the user may not be aware that "deleted" files are still easily accessible.

It should be noted that undeletion is often not fail-safe. The general rule is: The sooner the undeletion attempt is performed after a file deletion operation, the more likely the recovery works. Another factor is the amount of fragmentation of the file that's to be undeleted: If it was fragmented, the chances of recovery may be lower (but this also depends on the type of file system, see below).

Graphical user environments often take a different approach to undeletion by introducing a "holding area" for files to be deleted. Undesired files are moved to this holding area, and all of the files in the holding area are periodically deleted. This approach is used by the Trash can in Macintosh operating systems and by the Recycle Bin in Microsoft Windows.

Another approach is offered by programs such as Norton GoBack (formerly Roxio GoBack): A certain amount of the hard disk space is set aside in which modification operations to files are recorded in such a way that they may later be undone. This process is usually much safer in aiding recovery of deleted files than the undeletion operation as described below.

The workings of undeletion depends on the file system the deleted file was stored on. Some file systems, such as HFS, can not provide an undeletion feature because no information about the deleted file is retained (unless additional software takes care of this as an extra task, but which is not usually the case). Some file systems, however, do not erase all traces of a deleted file, one of them being the FAT file system:


[edit] FAT file system
When a file is deleted on a FAT file system, its directory entry remains stored on the disk, slightly renamed in a way that marks the entry as available for use by newly created files thereafter. Most of its name, its time stamp, file length and — most importantly - starting location on the disk, remains unchanged in the directory entry. The list of disk sectors (clusters, to be more specific) occupied by the file will be erased from the File Allocation Table, however, marking those sectors available for use by other files created or modified thereafter.

When an undeletion attempt is made, the following conditions must be met for a successful recovery of the file:

The entry of the deleted file must still exist in the directory, meaning that it must not yet be overwritten by a new file (or folder) that has been created in the same directory. Whether this is the case can fairly easily be detected by checking whether the remaining name of the file to be undeleted is still present in the directory.
The sectors formerly used by the deleted file must not be overwritten yet by other files. This can fairly well be verified by checking that the sectors are not marked as used in the File Allocation Table. However, if, in the meantime, a new file had been written to, using those sectors, and then deleted again, freeing those sectors again, this can not be detected automatically by the undeletion program. This means that an undeletion operation, even if appearing successful, might fail because the recovered file contains different data.
The file must not have been fragmented, meaning that the sectors its data occupied on the disk must have all been in one uninterrupted sequence. Whether this was the case or not may or may not be detectable by the undeletion program (it depends on the arrangement of other files on the disk).
If the undeletion program can not detect clear signs of the above requirements not being met, it will restore the directory entry as being in use and mark all consecutive sectors (clusters), beginning with the one as recorded in the old directory entry, as used in the File Allocation Table. It is then up to the user to open the recovered file and to verify that it really still contains the complete data of the formerly deleted file.

If the data of the recovered file is not correct, parts of the file may still be stored in other sectors of the disk, but recovery of those is not possible by automatic processes but only by manual examination of each (unused) block of the disk. This is, however, usually hardly feasible and can only be performed by specialists that have very good knowledge of both the disk structure and the data being searched.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undeletion"

Answer 5

I have heard that if you press ALT + F11 it will set your computer back to what is installed at the factory. I haven't tried it, but I was told by someone who works on computers.

Answer 6

Format it in DOS.

Answer 7

you can format xp by using the installation disk or a livecd for others.

Answer 8

15 pound sledgehammer and concrete!!!!

Answer 9

(in DOS)

FORMAT:C