PLEASE HELP!

[THOR006]

Hi,
I'm fixing a computer for a friend, and I need to clean out the hard drive? is the best way to format the hard drive or is there a simpler safer way that I don't know about? (deleting them really doesn't do anything as my friend found out the hard way).
Thanks
Austan

 

[Dman877]

Formatting is generally the best way to clean a hard drive, yes. Does he have data he wants to save?

 

[Mikeyb01]

Get Eraser and make a boot floopy then choose to write the hard drive on the highest setting 34 writes of 1's and 0's. Get it here http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/default.php. It will make sure NOTHING IS RECOVERABLE! SO WATCH OUT! This is clean! but if he just want to restart just format

 

[zephyrprime]

If you really want to get rid of the data, they I suggest you follow Mikey's advice and use eraser. Because the data is still recoverable even after a format.

 

[THOR006]

THANKS A BUNCH MIKEY! YOU GUYS RULE!

 

[newParadigm]

U could also use Max BLAST if its a maxtor drive (i think it works with non-maxtor drives too, not sure tho) and do a low level format, that way DATA recovery prgrams won't be able to get to the DATA.


FYI - A low level format writes zeros to the whole drive, it tkae like 0 hours tho.