Wiping The Hard Drive

[postie]

Do any of you computer technophiles know how i can wipe the contents of my hard drive? it is a work computer and I am leaving so i want to hand it back in the state i got it

any help will be gratefully accepted!

[WylieCoyote]

A big magnet!!!!

Reinstall windows is something that springs to mind.

[84Stoney]

FORMAT IT!

[PCIronmike]

Mr Sheen and a duster

[WylieCoyote]

ROFL

[Mincey]

I use a utility called KillDisk. You may be able to get it off the net but if not, please let me know and I'll email you a copy. It overwrites the contents of the hard drive with a series of "1"s and "0"s, thus rendering it useless without a complete rebuild.

If it is a laptop, there may be an option to restore to factory settings - i.e. it reinstalls Windows and all the drivers, but wipes any data and programs which you may have installed. Your company's IT department might feel less aggrieved if you do this instead of presenting them with a completely blank hard drive which they've got to rebuild.

Feel free to PM me if you need any help.

[Steve ( West Mids )]

Do you want to remove your stuff, or do you want to remove your stuff ;) If it's the former then format, if it's the latter then as micey said you can also get similar programs to download from the hard drive manufacture websites.

[DJ Wozza]

Format and re-install. I've heard that Kill-Disc is very good also.

[Rob]

even if you format the disk the info is still all there - get killdisk - it take a long time tho (overnight) but then it is all gone. http://www.killdisk.com/

[postie]

thank you all for your help-i'll look at Killdisk today

[PCIronmike]

Cant you just use system restore then go into my control panel and delete any stuff you have put onto it ?? I am clutching at straws , me , if its a problem I beat the Sh*t out of it = no problems :D sweet.

[postie]

Cant you just use system restore then go into my control panel and delete any stuff you have put onto it ?? I am clutching at straws , me , if its a problem I beat the Sh*t out of it = no problems :D sweet.

not sure if that would completely erase the data?

[Rob]

Cant you just use system restore then go into my control panel and delete any stuff you have put onto it ?? I am clutching at straws , me , if its a problem I beat the Sh*t out of it = no problems :D sweet.

not sure if that would completely erase the data?

system restore does nothing to personal files - all info will still be there.

[Guest inicol63]

Just asking a silly question if your using xp or other operating system.

Will you also lose this data?

[norkep]

Just asking a silly question if your using xp or other operating system.

Will you also lose this data?

Yes, by re-writing the HD, you'll render the OS - XP useless, but info is still there, just not readable by using the disk as a primary drive, all it's done is mark the used sectors on the drive to be written over

The true way of removing the any/all data is to write 0 & 1's to each and every sector of the drive, low-level format will remove the first sector to render the OS on the drive useless but not remove the data stored,

Most apps will rewrite the first couple of sectors and the last couple of sectors and random centre sectors but leave most of the centre untouched, even the manufactors diag tools will not remove all the data, they're not designed to do this