Erase hard drive for gift?

[STW]

I have a machine that I would like to give away to someone but there is
information on it that I don not want made available. If I have to remove
the C drive and run it over with my car I will. If there is a way to
completely erase everything for this person to start over I would prefer
that. Thanks for helping.
STW

 

[Guest]

I have a machine that I would like to give away to someone but there is
information on it that I don not want made available. If I have to remove
the C drive and run it over with my car I will. If there is a way to
completely erase everything for this person to start over I would prefer
that. Thanks for helping.
STW

If you still have the CD installation , you can wipe out the whole and
install from scratch (Clean install), delete old partition (s) and create new
one(s) and format them (it).
Or search for Disk Eraser tool.
HTH.
nass

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have a machine that I would like to give away to someone but there is
information on it that I don not want made available. If I have to remove
the C drive and run it over with my car I will. If there is a way to
completely erase everything for this person to start over I would prefer
that. Thanks for helping.
STW

The average user will be stopped by the method that nass suggested.
You could also boot the machine with a Win98 boot diskette from
www.bootdisk.com, then run delpart.exe
(http://www.russelltexas.com/delpart.htm)
to delete all partitions.

It the new user is determined enough then he could undo the
formatting with some undelete tools. Driving the car over the
disk won't make much of a difference but the three-brick
method will: Place two bricks on the ground, leaving a large
gap between. Now place your disk so that bridges the gap,
the drop the third brick onto the disk, edge first. After 5 or
10 drops, the disk case (and the platters inside) will be broken.

You could, of course, simply remove the disk and ask the
recipient to buy an new one. They are cheap.

 

[Solon]

STW,
You will, of course, need to have it connected to a computer that's not
using THAT drive to operate (Can't erase the drive that operates the
computer and all). Perhaps booting from a system disk or something will give
you what you need.

You're right that deleting isn't necessarily going to do it. If I remember
correctly, deleting a file doesn't remove it, simply 'renames' it to
something the system won't recognize. Your average person won't be able to
get it back, but if you're really concerned that someone a bit more
knowledgeable might try, then I think you want to do a format.

Connect that drive to a different system (or boot to a system disk).. if
you're in windows, open My Computer and right-click on the drive in
question. Select "Format..." and do a full format (not a quick one, not a
compressed one). If you can only work from a command line, "Format" is the
command.. to format D:, you'd type "Format D:" and hit enter (Do a google
search for "DOS Commands" and 'Format" to make sure that's correct, my DOS
days are dimming from my memory.. ) My understanding is formatting doesn't
necessarily re-write the data, but the ability of the system to ACCESS that
data is so small that it would take someone like NASA or something, though I
can't imagine that your security needs would be THAT great.

My Norton Disk Doctor had a defrag capability that would allow me to have it
write a '1' or a '0' to every single unused space on the disk. The nice
thing about that is then even NASA or whoever would start to have trouble
recreating files. I bring this up because once you've formatted, if you have
a program that will let you overwrite all empty space with a 1 or 0... then
the FIRST thing you would want to do after the format, is the overwrite.
(The 'poor mans overwrite' is to copy HUGE files onto the disk.. like
movies or something, until it's BURSTING at its seams.. now all those
'empty' spaces are taken up by movies.. but YOUR files have been wiped out..
then do the format.)

Now the disk is BLANK as blank can be for nearly all intents and purposes.

Of course, the operating system will have to be re-loaded... which isn't a
big deal.

Hope That Helped,

Solon

 

[Greg T]

Check this site. http://dban.sourceforge.net/ Greg T

 

[Tom Ferguson]

This is a good commercial product-
http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/drivecleanser/

There are also free solutions available. Do a Google or other search for
secure file erase or similar.

Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I have a machine that I would like to give away to someone but there is
information on it that I don not want made available. If I have to
remove the C drive and run it over with my car I will. If there is a way
to completely erase everything for this person to start over I would
prefer that. Thanks for helping.
STW

To protect your personal information and data from any future users
of average skills, you should, at the very least, format the hard drive.
You can do this using the original Installation CD. Simply boot from
the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered the opportunity to delete,
create, and format partitions as part of the installation process. (You
may need to re-arrange the order of boot devices in the PC's BIOS to
boot from the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

If you wish to do a more thorough job of protecting your personal
data, WipeDrive
(http://www.whitecanyon.com/wipedrive-erase-hard-drive.php) meets U.S.
DoD standards for securely cleaning surplus unclassified hard drives,
and could be used before formatting and reinstalling the OS and
applications.



--

Bruce Chambers

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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot

 

[Mike Cawood, HND BIT]

I have a machine that I would like to give away to someone but there is
information on it that I don not want made available. If I have to remove
the C drive and run it over with my car I will. If there is a way to
completely erase everything for this person to start over I would prefer
that. Thanks for helping.
STW

Delete the main partition.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I have a machine that I would like to give away to someone but there is
information on it that I don not want made available. If I have to remove
the C drive and run it over with my car I will. If there is a way to
completely erase everything for this person to start over I would prefer
that. Thanks for helping.
STW

If you really want to protect that information, put another drive in.
Where I am 80 gig drives are maybe $40 now.

If you need to retire that drive and must be sure you have prevented access
to the data, put on safety glasses, take a hammer to it, and call it
therapy.

Once the platters are smashed, you're done.

HTH
-pk

 

[Uncle Grumpy]

If you still have the CD installation , you can wipe out the whole and
install from scratch (Clean install), delete old partition (s) and create new
one(s) and format them (it).

You're a ****ing moron. That's gibberish to most folks messaging
here.

 

[Unknown]

Don't assume what is gibberish for you is gibberish for everyone.