wipe hard drive before selling

david69_2

I've got a decent pc that i will be selling soon but i want to wipe hard drive now i have tried d-ban but it won't work .
Is there any other software out there to use

somersethillbilly

You could do worse than CCleaner, offers an option to overwrite 35 times, may be of use to you?

Hammyman

somersethillbilly wrote: »

You could do worse than CCleaner, offers an option to overwrite 35 times, may be of use to you?

CCleaner is of no use for this. It only overwrites the free space meaning there can easily still be cached files and passwords etc left behind.

Use DBAN. It wipes discs to US MIL spec. You say you've tried it and it doesn't work. Why not?

Viper_7

Only way to be secure is to shred the disk.
Any company worth it's salt would not entertain any other kind of method. if US military do indeed us DBAN. Shows what a complete joke they are, and their auditors must be on the payroll.

somersethillbilly

Hammyman wrote: »

CCleaner is of no use for this. It only overwrites the free space meaning there can easily still be cached files and passwords etc left behind.

Incorrect, ccleaner has an option to wipe free space, or the entire drive.

[Deleted User]

Viper_7 wrote: »

Only way to be secure is to shred the disk.
Any company worth it's salt would not entertain any other kind of method. if US military do indeed us DBAN. Shows what a complete joke they are, and their auditors must be on the payroll.

Overwriting the contents of a magnetic drive is only one step in a multi stage process that culminates in the physical destruction. It's nothing unique to the military, most large organisations do the same..

Viper_7

anewhope wrote: »

Overwriting the contents of a magnetic drive is only one step in a multi stage process that culminates in the physical destruction. It's nothing unique to the military, most large organisations do the same..

errm that's what I said...

Aiadi

somersethillbilly wrote: »

Incorrect, ccleaner has an option to wipe free space, or the entire drive.

How does it wipe the drive when it needs to run from it? can you please explain?

GunJack

Aiadi wrote: »

How does it wipe the drive when it needs to run from it? can you please explain?

I assume that either:-

1. it wipes everything apart from the windows install, or

2. once it's loaded into RAM it can wipe the drive in the same way you use a bootable CD

best check the CCleaner help file (before it's wiped )

societys_child

If it's a decent pc, you should get decent money for it .. put in a new HD and keep your old drive?

GunJack

Quote from the piriform CCleaner help site......

Choose the type of wipe you require:

1. Free Space Only will leave your normal files intact

2. Entire Drive will erase all of the files on the drive. WARNING, this means the whole of the partition will be erased. The drive will still be formatted, but all data will be erased. For safety reasons, this feature is disabled for the boot drive.