Erasing 2nd Internal Hard drive

[denmarfl]

The manufacturer of my PC provided me with a New Imaged Hard drive. My old
drive was working fine except it had some pre-installed software on it that
could not be removed and could cause conflicts. The manufactiurer wants the
old Hard drive returned. The old drive has some senitive personal
information on it so I am reluctant just to pack it up and return it.

I have done some research about how to wipe off all information on a Hard
drive before donating a PC, etc......but all I have read is very complicated
and I am not comfortable in proceedding following any of the processes.

Keeping in mind, I am not erasing the Hard drive with my PC's OS on it,
(although the Old drive still has an OS on it). I can connect the OLD drive
as a 2nd Internal drive....and than proceed to Wipe it Clean before returning
it.

Surely there must be an easy, simple process for someone with limited
computer knowledge to wipe a 2nd Internal Hard drive clean of all data so
that no one could access any information off that drive....

Hopefully someone has an easy process\answer for me...thank you

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

Well, if you talk to the military, they are going to tell you about systems
that write one's and zero's on the drive, alternately, and over and over, to
make it unrecoverable. Others will claim only an acid bath, or a spike
driven thru the disks will do. Given the fact that the people who sell your
system are reputable, and have something to lose by spying on you, probably
just formatting the drive or removing all partitions would do it. You might
boot to a CD drive 'preinstall' disk like BartPE and remove partitions on
that drive.
(BartPE) bootable live windows CD-DVD: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

 

[Malke]

denmarfl wrote:

(snippage)

Surely there must be an easy, simple process for someone with limited
computer knowledge to wipe a 2nd Internal Hard drive clean of all data so
that no one could access any information off that drive....

Extremely easy and free. Download Darik's Boot and Nuke:

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Burn the file as an image, not as a data file, to CD-R using third-party
burning software.

Shut down your computer. If you are extremely paranoid and nervous, open the
case and disconnect the good new drive, only leaving the "bad" second hard
drive connected.

Otherwise, just boot with the CD you created and follow instructions.

Even easier and potentially more satisfying:

Take the bad hard drive outside and hit it repeatedly with a sledge hammer
or drill holes in it.

Malke

 

[NetLink_Blue]

The manufacturer of my PC provided me with a New Imaged Hard drive. My
old
drive was working fine except it had some pre-installed software on it
that
could not be removed and could cause conflicts. The manufactiurer wants
the
old Hard drive returned. The old drive has some senitive personal
information on it so I am reluctant just to pack it up and return it.

I have done some research about how to wipe off all information on a Hard
drive before donating a PC, etc......but all I have read is very
complicated
and I am not comfortable in proceedding following any of the processes.

Keeping in mind, I am not erasing the Hard drive with my PC's OS on it,
(although the Old drive still has an OS on it). I can connect the OLD
drive
as a 2nd Internal drive....and than proceed to Wipe it Clean before
returning
it.

Surely there must be an easy, simple process for someone with limited
computer knowledge to wipe a 2nd Internal Hard drive clean of all data so
that no one could access any information off that drive....

Hopefully someone has an easy process\answer for me...thank you

The easiest way would be to hookup the Old Drive, and reinstall Windows
Vista on it. REFORMAT before doing the fresh install. The New install
should overwrite a lot of disk space. Disk recovery of files may show some
file names to the manufacturer's curious employees, but I don't think they
could salvage anything useful. I have not tried this procedure ... just a
shot-in-the-dark.

You could Google for software to do this. I believe some free software has
options to "clean" old files beyond just deleting them.

good luck,
- Net

 

[NetLink_Blue]

Before and after "scrubbing" your hard-drive, borrow or use free Undelete
software to see what you can see on Old Drive (yourself).

.... just another thought / blue

 

[Not Me]

The easiest way would be to hookup the Old Drive, and reinstall Windows
Vista on it. REFORMAT before doing the fresh install. The New install
should overwrite a lot of disk space. Disk recovery of files may show
some file names to the manufacturer's curious employees, but I don't think
they could salvage anything useful. I have not tried this procedure ...
just a shot-in-the-dark.

You could Google for software to do this. I believe some free software
has options to "clean" old files beyond just deleting them.

good luck,
- Net

There are utilities that will rewrite the drive with all 0s or such, the
more times you do it, the less likely the data will be recoverable.
Once you are satisfied that the data is erased, send it back.
I doubt the manufacturer will care if you reinstall the OS as they will
either trash it or re-image it for a different system.