Cleaning a Hard Drive

I just recieved a new computer and I would like to donate
my old computer. Before I donate my old computer I would
like to make sure there is no personnal information left
on the hard drive. I have heard that I should format my
old hard drive then there are programs to be ran which
will over-wright the old information which still exist on
the hard drive just marked as deleted. I hope that makes
some sense.

Can anyone tell me if I'm on the right track to do what I
want to do and what the name of these type of programs are?

Cheng
Thu Dec 18 11:09:44 CST 2003

If you perform a full format, which takes hours depending on the size of
your hard disk, everything will be gone.

There are many useful utilities for doing such the full format, including
the ones coming with Windows and the CMOS's low-level HD format utility
(depending on your CMOS version. Search the Web for sth like "low-level
format" to download free generic low-level utilities if you don't trust
Windows' ones.

Rithy


"Jeff H" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0d0f01c3c587$bbc320d0$a601280a@phx.gbl...
> I just recieved a new computer and I would like to donate
> my old computer. Before I donate my old computer I would
> like to make sure there is no personnal information left
> on the hard drive. I have heard that I should format my
> old hard drive then there are programs to be ran which
> will over-wright the old information which still exist on
> the hard drive just marked as deleted. I hope that makes
> some sense.
>
> Can anyone tell me if I'm on the right track to do what I
> want to do and what the name of these type of programs are?
>

Ulrich
Fri Dec 19 06:02:28 CST 2003

Jeff H wrote:

> I just recieved a new computer and I would like to donate
> my old computer. Before I donate my old computer I would
> like to make sure there is no personnal information left
> on the hard drive. I have heard that I should format my
> old hard drive then there are programs to be ran which
> will over-wright the old information which still exist on
> the hard drive just marked as deleted. I hope that makes
> some sense.
>
> Can anyone tell me if I'm on the right track to do what I
> want to do and what the name of these type of programs are?
>

PowerQuest's PartitionMagic has an option to delete a partition with
secure erase. If you have the product or find it useful for other
purposes, this feature would be what you're looking for.

Ulrich Boche
(I have no connection whatsoever with PowerQuest)