What is a good formatting utility that wipes your drive clean.

[TazExprez]

I would like to sell one of my HDD's and would like to format it and make all of my data unrecoverable. What is a good program to do this? Thanks for your help.

 

[PurdueRy]

I would imagine "Format C:" Would make it pretty darn difficult to recover anything no?

 

[sniperruff]

i tihnk there is a program taht can write all 0's on the drive.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: rleemhui
I would imagine "Format C:" Would make it pretty darn difficult to recover anything no?

No. Easiest to recover from.

Originally posted by: sniperruff
i tihnk there is a program taht can write all 0's on the drive.

A speedbump at best, and a short one.

Short of physically destroying the drive - which kinda negates the ability to sell it - your best bet is DBAN.

- M4H

 

[TazExprez]

Thanks a lot for your help. I will install DBAN now.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: TazExprez
Thanks a lot for your help. I will install DBAN now.

You don't install DBAN, you run it from a floppy.

And for the love of god, don't run it on a machine with any drives you care about plugged in.

- M4H

 

[Zepper]

Eraser http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ works equally well as dban (actually I think it includes dban for doing full disk wipes).

.bh.

:moon:

 

[VirtualLarry]

Unless you have corp./gov't/medical/financial secrets/etc., on your HD, then a "write zeros" tool should be likely "good enough". But if the FBI/CIA/MI5/Mossad are all after you, you should physically destroy the drive (shred first, then melt down completely) instead of wipe it.

Your standard DOS "format" program doesn't actually really wipe anything, and is easily recovered from.

Btw, IBM/Hitachi's DFT tool, has an option for "Erase Disk" that does a "Security Erase Prepare" operation on your HD, which can "write zeros" to even some of the internal sectors, it seems. DBAN or Heidi should work just fine though.

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, A free one is on the MADBOOT disk. It's free. You will have to search for it. I don't remember where I found it. Jim