Best way to wipe a hard drive ?

[Dicehunter]

After a bout of virus's and other stuff I thought I'd wipe my HDD, Would a standard right click and format do the job or is there a more in depth method I should look at ?

[DigitalHermit]

DBAN?

[Interfectorem]

After a bout of virus's and other stuff I thought I'd wipe my HDD, Would a standard right click and format do the job or is there a more in depth method I should look at ?

I wipe my hard drives with a simple microfiber cloth. Gets the dust off good.

 

In all seriousness though, what I did was just reformat it. It's probably not the best way but it cleared everything off and I use it as a plain storage device now.

[Dicehunter]

I wipe my hard drives with a simple microfiber cloth. Gets the dust off good.

 

In all seriousness though, what I did was just reformat it. It's probably not the best way but it cleared everything off and I use it as a plain storage device now.

 

 

[Geekazoid]

I wipe my hard drives with a simple microfiber cloth. Gets the dust off good.

Ah yes, I use the same method to wipe my external HDD. It does a damn good job it does.

[nj4ck]

I do the standard right-click format, good enough for me... if you want your data irreversibly destroyed forever (like if you're running from the FBI) you'll need to use the sledgehammer-method.

[EpicAdom]

I do the standard right-click format, good enough for me... if you want your data irreversibly destroyed forever (like if you're running from the FBI) you'll need to use the sledgehammer-method.

Just do this ^

[SimpleG]

Drop it, like it's hot

 

[vorticalbox]

I do the standard right-click format, good enough for me... if you want your data irreversibly destroyed forever (like if you're running from the FBI) you'll need to use the sledgehammer-method.

 

 

Just do this ^

 

 

31 wipes then wipe free space.

[Dicehunter]

I do the standard right-click format, good enough for me... if you want your data irreversibly destroyed forever (like if you're running from the FBI) you'll need to use the sledgehammer-method.

 

I've just collected lots of crap over the last year and a virus scan will take days on a 4TB drive so a wipe is in order.

 

Anyone used ccleaners secure wipe feature ?

[Pugs501]

Maybe get a new HHD?

[themaniac]

magnet maybe 

[Dicehunter]

Maybe get a new HHD?

 

It's a WD Caviar Black 4TB and only just 1 year old so getting a new one just because I want to wipe it is out of the question.

 

I got a virus warning from my ISP saying they noticed a trojan on my connection sort of like an after service monitoring thing, Quite handy.

 

I've run NOD32, Avast, Malware Bytes etc... and found nothing but I want to wipe my HDD anyway to clear out the clutter.

[Pugs501]

It's a WD Caviar Black 4TB and only just 1 year old so getting a new one just because I want to wipe it is out of the question.

 

I got a virus warning from my ISP saying they noticed a trojan on my connection sort of like an after service monitoring thing, Quite handy.

 

I've run NOD32, Avast, Malware Bytes etc... and found nothing but I want to wipe my HDD anyway to clear out the clutter.

Oh ok.

[flibberdipper]

I use CCleaner's wipe drive feature, and I usually do 7 passes, and then the 30-whatever if I'm getting rid of the drive.

[Dicehunter]

I use CCleaner's wipe drive feature, and I usually do 7 passes, and then the 30-whatever if I'm getting rid of the drive.

 

Do you know if this effects the overall health of the drive much ?

[adhisakti]

download UBCD/Hiren and run the harddrive zero fill utilities based on your harddrive brand

[flibberdipper]

Do you know if this effects the overall health of the drive much ?

Unless it's an SSD, there will probably be no effects at all, unless the drive is really old and starting to show signs of imminent death.

[Speedbird]

I use CCleaner's wipe drive feature, and I usually do 7 passes, and then the 30-whatever if I'm getting rid of the drive.

Dude, you only need to do 1 on modern drives.

[flibberdipper]

Dude, you only need to do 1 on modern drives.

I like to feel secure.

[Columbo]

I would recommend a hammer of at least 40 ounces. Some opt for the sledgehammer. A sharp nail or something that could shatter the platters. The other method is explosives, you don't want to go that route. I usually wipe drives using another computer to wipe them. I use Windows 7 Disk management and a handy dandy USB external drive docking station for the magnetic drives. I wipe them again when I reinstall the OS. 

[RushTfe32]

If it's a secondary disk, just download this program "hddllf"

Install it and choose your hdd to be wiped.

This will perform a low level format, aka zero fill, to your disk. This will destroy any information inside your hdd, and will leave it totally new. There is no possibility to recover any info after doing this.

If you want to do it to your primary disk, then you'll need to do it from a boot CD, you may want to take a look on hiren boot, which is a very good suite, very helpful to do almost anything booting from this, or just look for a program called hdderase, and boot your pc from it.

[EpicAdom]

31 wipes then wipe free space.

Because you can much?