Wiping the hard drive clean

[EveningStar]

This is so embarrassing. I haven't used DOS commands for years and have forgotten most of them.

Here's my problem:

I have an old computer that I want to junk but I first want to wipe the hard drive totally clean. The drive is partitioned into C and D drives. The OS is Windows 95. The computer is a Pentium Pro 200.

What is the best command to use to erase everything - partitions, data, etc - and make it unrecoverable?

[Lokibob]

Assemble A hammer, knife, screwdriver and strong magnet. Cut, bed, smash, fold, magnetize and demagnetize all parts of the drives.
Fire up your BBQ, and roast for 2 hours at 500 degrees.
After all the above has been done, you might, just might, have destroyed the data.

[John Will]

Or using evidence elimnator or cyber scrunb, run a 35 pass hardrive wipe.

[So Cal Rocket]

There appears to be no software solution that is completely unhackable - traces of data can be reconstructed no matter how many times the drive is "wiped".

The method described by Lokibob is probably the only 100% secure solution.

[Keeper of the Turf]

Try this.
http://www.r-wipe.com/?GGLAW300

[LibKill]

Take the old hard drive out to the country, bring along your favorite firearm, eye and hearing protection.

Set the thing against a safe backstop at least 20 meters away, so you won't get hit by fragments of hard drive.

Open fire. Repeat as necessary.

Seriously, back in the day when I was in the Corps, hard drives used for classified material were decommisioned by sandblasting the oxide off the platters, or other destructive method.

[Lady Jag]

Can he do that in California?

[Lady Jag]

Apply solution #2 first, then combine it with solution #1, unless of course you can shoot it (#3), in which case, eliminate #1 or re-sequence to 2, 3, 1.

[chance33_98]

Install Linux and let it handle it (I recently installed red hat 9 on a p200). fdisk is ok, get the new os on and then download some utilities to wipe it clean.

[LibKill]

Can he do that in California?

Erp! Missed that little detail.

No! I would not recommend this method in Orange County California, and I have lived there.

Disassemble the hard drive. Take the platters (round flat things) and have them sandblasted until there is no oxide (shiny stuff) left on them, just bare aluminum.

[LibKill]

Y,know, having been back in Texas for so long, I sometimes forget that other places are not firearm-friendly.

[Lady Jag]

Maybe somebody can help you shoot it.

[LibKill]

DOH!

I should have thought of this earlier.

Go fishing on the big blue Pacific Ocean.

Bury the hard drive at sea. Problem solved. You may even catch some fish. :)

[sigSEGV]

If it were me, I'd load a Knoppix Linux CD and run:
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda

[SendShaqtoIraq]

Would you like a real answer?

FDISK

No, that won't wipe it clean so the FBI or CIA couldn't read it, but I'm sure it will do for your purposes.

[supercat]

Doing a format and then creating some really big files that use up all available disk space will get 99% of the data off the drive pretty well. If you need to erase the drive in such a way that a company like OnTrack won't be able to recover it, you'll have to destroy it. Modern drives include magnetically-recorded information that cannot be regenerated without special equipment. If you erase the drive thoroughly enough to ensure that no data remains, you'll also erase the servo information that would be necessary to make the drive work.

[rogueleader]

Physical destruction is best. Other posters have good ideas. Rewriting random data to the hard drive is not an absolute guarantee. It's easier, cheaper, and more reliable to just break it into small pieces.