i want to donate my computer. how do i completely erase my hard drive memory?

Answer 1

format

Answer 2

Formatting the disk will not work completely because the system will reach a point that it cannot function and may leave part of the disk clean. Deleting a partition won't work either because files are never "erased", just the pointers to their location is marked as available and eventually reused.

You could use Ask.com or Google to search for a file wiper; Norton Utilities once had one but I don't know if it has that any more. The suite of software to get just that may be a little pricey.

This approach will work, but it is time consuming although it can be automated.

Find the largest file on your computer. With a word processor, create a file of the same size. This file should contain gibberish with strings such as XOXOXOXOXO as the entire body of text. Save this file then copy it using the name of existing files as the new name. This will overwrite the files with the garbage data. I don't know if it would really make any difference but after that, I would defragment the disk.

Answer 3

you need a utility program that, in essence, writes zeros or gibberish into every storage location and does this multiple times. Obviously, this needs to run from another drive and NOT from the command line or Windows/Mac OS [which are on the hard drive and thus would either fail to erase themselves or would soon cause the o/s to fail with the job incomplete -- modern o/ses are so large that they aren't completely in memory and must pull pieces of themselves off the hard drive as needed].

an alternative is to remove the hard drive completely from the computer and subject it to a very strong electrical [magnetic] field -- likely multiple times. I'm not certain of the strength required, nor of a simple way to generate it repeatedly.

Formatting the drive, with any o/s I know of, simply erases the indices [format and entry data] for the drive -- it does NOT erase, remove, or delete the underlying information, which can still be recovered by specialized utility programs.


Frankly, I just use a software [utility] program and I only use it on my data storage areas. Then I delete my installed programs, overwrite the o/s with PCDOS or other free non-Windows program and then reformat the drive -- I figure this will give any snarky jerk who is trying to recover my bank account data or similar enough fits that he'll give up and go on to an easier target.


GL

Answer 4

the free version of KILLDISK only does a single level of zeroes - not the most secure. it will work, but the experts could probably get past it.

Donate the PC without the hard drive for the most secure method.

Or use this - it is free and does the best job - it will wipe to Dept. of Defense standards -
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/

Or try this - http://staff.washington.edu/jdlarios/autoclave-discontinued/

Answer 5

Here's afree program that does a good job...completely erases entire drive including partitions!

http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm

Answer 6

Hardiscs are such machines that you can never erase them completely...
You can format your PC(Harddisc)with the Xp or Vista CD but surely some compmen can even load back the datas you used to have before the format...
I suggest you to format it....

Answer 7

Delete the all partitions from any windows os XP installation CD