Formatting a hard drive for sale
Is there a cheap easy secure way to remove HDD data before selling it. There are things like CVs and banking documents I need to remove before doing it. I expect the inevitable predictable jokes about porn and general filth but hopefully there'll be some useful stuff mixed in there also :).
Thanks.
Re: Formatting a hard drive for sale
Sorry to bring this back up but it's not TOO old a thread so I thought it would be ok. As I said in my thread in GD, I may want to get rid of my hdd and if I do indeed give it to a charity I want to wipe it with dban first. Thing is, it says "DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.". I just want to wipe an external hdd which is connected by USB, not my main hdd too. Can DBAN do this or will it just wipe my main one too?
Cheers.
Re: Formatting a hard drive for sale
the quickest way to destroy all the data from the drive is with Windows 95 osr2 no lower (FAT32) fdisk it and then run format /s /u using full format which you'll probably have to do anyway if its been on XP NTFS.
do this a couple of times.
As the change file system will irrevocably alter the drive structure the format afterwards will finish the job.
Re: Formatting a hard drive for sale
Quote:
Originally Posted by
htid
Sorry to bring this back up but it's not TOO old a thread so I thought it would be ok. As I said in my thread in GD, I may want to get rid of my hdd and if I do indeed give it to a charity I want to wipe it with dban first. Thing is, it says "DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.". I just want to wipe an external hdd which is connected by USB, not my main hdd too. Can DBAN do this or will it just wipe my main one too?
Cheers.
I think your OS would have a thing or two to say about wiping the drive it's on, not to mention the one DBan itself is on :D
Re: Formatting a hard drive for sale
Thanks for bringing this one back up. I'd almost forgotten how hilarious Clunk was.
Re: Formatting a hard drive for sale
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Clunk
Saw it in half.
That's he Debbie McGee fetish showing through again.
Re: Formatting a hard drive for sale
Huge overpowered magnet + hard drive.
Not sure if magnets actually do affect data or just ruin the drive though...
Re: Formatting a hard drive for sale
Too be honest, unless it is a huge nearly new hard drive, which I suspct it isn't, you would probably be better off smashing it rather than selling it for the price you would get against the time you have spent worring about it. :wallbash: :D