How should I erase my hard drive before I give it away?

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quote"what is about the DD command, "
if you're using dd, it'd be better to use urandom rather than null as you input file and do it a few of times

Here is what I do, to delete my Ex: nakedPic.jpg: Before deleting it, I look for an innocent picture like: tree.jpg and I rename it nakedPic.jpg.The system tell me that that name already exist and if I want to replace it. I click yes. Now, if I open nakedPic.jpg, I will see a tree instead of my wife's naked body. Now I delete it. If somebody recover this picture, all they see is a tree. No trace of other picture. You can replace an important doc,txt,jpg,mp3,... for a insignificant doc,txt,jpg,mp3,... save it and delete it after.

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For the record, it's quite possible to reconstruct the
original picture even after you've "deleted" it the way you
describe. The actual data on the hard disk has not been
erased by your actions. It's not easy to recover, but to
someone dedicated enough to the task it might be.

Leo

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I tried to run format c:/u and it's asking me for the volume label for drive c but I do not know what that is. How do I find it?

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Before you do the format do a "Dir C:" - the result will
start with something like this:

Volume in drive C is XXXXXX

where XXXXXX is replaced by the volume label for that drive.

Leo

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Drilling right through the disk will completely kill the entire drive correct?

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Yes and no. But 99.99999% yes :-)

The "problem" is that seriously advanced, expensive and time
consuming techniques could, perhaps, recover data everywhere
there's not a hole in the disk platters. It's HIGHLY
UNLIKELY - more like the stuff of spy movies and bad TV
shows - but remotely possible.

For all practical purposes, though, drilling a few holes
works just great. :-)

Leo

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It's easy to securely erase your hard drive. First, simply perform an erase on the entire drive (no need to really erase anything - just makes the allocation table identify everything as unused space) then copy other information that you don't care about onto the drive until it is full). And the simplest way to do this, is to copy very large files, I would recommend movie files (ATI, WMV, MPG etc etc) and you can even copy the same file many times provided you give it a different name, otherwise it will just keep overwriting the same disk space. If you are still paranoid, then do this

(1) do a full, low-level format
(2) fill the disk up with junk
(3) do another full, low-level format

Please add WipeDrive you list. www.wipedrive.com

Know & learn more about wipping the Hard drive
http://www.eraseharddrivedata.com

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