Free software to wipe HDD?

[Butuz]

Ive got about 60 PC's that i am sending away to PC heaven to be recycled - i want to make sure there hard disks are zeroed. The recycling company says they wipe the HDD's but well, i just want to make double sure

Anyone know any free software that will do this?

Cheers

Butuz

[genie_wt]

It's called a Magnet...

[Twigman]

Axe? Hammer?

Or just download loads of porn and put that on them

[Butuz]

Ok ill bear the above in mind.... ayone else got any suggestions? (preferably something a bit less prehisoric)

Butuz

[Starburn]

Linux shred command?

[Moby-Dick]

if you *really* want to clear the data , then an industrial shredded is the only way forward.

there are a few on download.com

such as...

http://www.download.com/Eraser/3000-...ml?tag=lst-0-3

[TheAnimus]

acid for the platters.

Shredding a HDD is considered to be impractical, as some anoying mathematition will come along, find a pattern in the random data over writes and recover everything.

the trick is to shred it soo well it will never stand up in court, if its ultra-secret stuff, which people musn't ever find out, then destroy the platters. A shredder will make it not worth the effort for anyone but the most determined.

The analogy i use to explain it to not quite techi enough clients is think of each BIT on the HDD as a 2l bucket of water, with a line 1 leter high. When it leaves the factory it has 1.5leters in, when you clear it, it takes out 1 leter, when you set it, it adds 1 leter. But the hdd wasn't adding/removing exactly 1 leter, it was in fact 0.999999994, as such you can work out probabilities for each possible chain of events.

Its one of those, "trust me things" but 300 re-writes with "random" data isn't *that* much of a problem if you have the right people after you.

[Moby-Dick]

that might be a bit extreme but I guess it depends on how sensetive the data was that was on ehte machines.

[Butuz]

Whoa whoa

These are not ministry of defence PC's that i got off the back of a lorry or anything - theyre School PC's, they dont have much sensitive data on them at all, only a windows installation and a few programs. I just wanted to wipe them so that they could not be *super* easily recovered to use our copys of windows and our apps etc

Thing is the recycling company will use any hardware thats of a decent spec and works in other places - so i dont want to go and destroy it all via a small nuclear explosion or anything because if someone else can find a use for it then good for them

I'll give that tool above a go - its must be better than just leaving it as it is?

Cheers

Butuz

[jimborae]

You want Darik's Boot & Nuke, a.k.a. D-ban.

1. Very cheap i.e. FREE
2. Very easy to use
3. Fast & choice of algorythems to use depending on how secure vs. speed you want to be.

Get D-Ban here

[satan]

Killdisk.

http://killdisk.com/

[Workaholic]

Leave a few time-activated viruses on it. That'll teach them to re-use / undelete programs.

[peterb]

Low level format will do it. Some bioses support that function, otherwise the mfr's web site may have something.

[Tomahawk]

You want Darik's Boot & Nuke, a.k.a. D-ban.

1. Very cheap i.e. FREE
2. Very easy to use
3. Fast & choice of algorythems to use depending on how secure vs. speed you want to be.

Get D-Ban here

This is what I have been recommended, and what I was going to recommened here!...

So another vote/recommendation for this program!

[Butuz]

Cheers peeps

Butuz

[njm106]

A low level format should be suitable for what you need, hell even just a standard format C: would be good enough I think.