Erasing a Hardrive

[hitman12108]

How do you completely erase everything on a hardrive?

[dadasmithywinkle]

How do you completely erase everything on a hardrive?

Just reformat it using Window's Drive Manager.

[Enderman]

Just reformat it using Window's Drive Manager.

formatting doesnt erase a hard drive

 

you need to use a tool like CCleaner to do a secure erase and OVERWRITE the entire drive with 0s

you can choose between 1 and 30 passes I think

the more you do, the more impossible it becomes to get any data

[CM7]

Smash it into pieces and bury them in different locations around the world. If someone wants that data they are going on a Easter egg hunt. Or you could do what Enderman said too.

[hitman12108]

Just reformat it using Window's Drive Manager.

it wont let me reformat because this hardrive is the one with windows on it, so how do i completely erase my hardrive so i can put it in my new computer?

[dadasmithywinkle]

it wont let me reformat because this hardrive is the one with windows on it, so how do i completely erase my hardrive so i can put it in my new computer?

If it has windows on it, then put it in the new computer and format it with the windows install media. You cant wipe the boot drive whilst still using it

[Brawhammer]

A decent nuke in a desert does the job.

 

On a serious note, Why? If this is for business purposes doing a quick format then writing gigabytes of raw data over and over again will usually do the trick in replacing everything so it is unrecoverable.

 

But you could have a tool do that I suppose.