Formatting/cleaning a hard drive for donation

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superjohnny

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Jan 1, 2001
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Hello,
I have a few old computers that are about to get donated to charity. Before I let them go I'd like to clean/format them so there is no way to recover any of the data currently on the drives. What program should I use to "clean" them or what should I do to prepare them to go out & serve someone else?

Thanks
 
Perfect mcravenufo, thank you very much. Not so much pr0n, but I don't want any personal/financial info on them for someone else to find. DBAN sounds like just the ticket!

Cheers both,
Johnny
 
Ghetto wipe process:

1) Download a dirty JPG.
2) Make copies of the JPG until the drive is full.
3) Delete partition.

I suggest goat-se, so anyone nosing around for your deleted files gets what's coming to them. Not quite as thorough as writing random bits across multiple passes, but more than adequate for anyone without serious equipment and time.
 
My personal favorite method involves a VERY large hammer.:D

8 pounder at least!

But I guess that won't work for you.
 
mcravenufo said:
http://dban.sourceforge.net/
Click to expand...

Great program.

superjohnny said:
Perfect mcravenufo, thank you very much. Not so much pr0n, but I don't want any personal/financial info on them for someone else to find. DBAN sounds like just the ticket!

Cheers both,
Johnny
Click to expand...

Depending on the financial info you may want to donate the machines without the drives.

For non-important drives I generaly use dban. My clients that have a lot of financial info like the accountants the drives meet a drill press.
 
swatbat said:
Great program.
Depending on the financial info you may want to donate the machines without the drives.

For non-important drives I generaly use dban. My clients that have a lot of financial info like the accountants the drives meet a drill press.
Click to expand...

I've been partial to taking my drives out to the range and shooting them with my M1A at 100 yards. 3 shots will pretty much obliterate the thing. :)
 
trmentry said:
I've been partial to taking my drives out to the range and shooting them with my M1A at 100 yards. 3 shots will pretty much obliterate the thing. :)
Click to expand...

One of my friends use to use a S&W 500 for "erasing" them.

It really comes down to whats on the drive. If you don't have anything real important on it or if you are throwing it in a family machine or whatever dban is fine.
 
I have been using the linux program shred..... Works great for keeping people's data safe.....
 
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