Wiping a hard drive

[really]

I have an old PC at home I am going to junk / recycle / donate to charity (if anyone actually wants a 10 year old PIII 550 MHz)

Can anyone recommend something I can download to the machine before hand to wipe the hard drive completely?

The PC is running XP SP1.

Thanks.

[GVBN]

Download some small Linux live CD and run dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/hda a few times

[Genocidicbunny]

http://www.dban.org/ oughta do the trick
EDIT - to completely wipe the HDD you're gonna need something that can boot off the cd. If you want to donate the pc with XP installed, I suggest getting the serial key off there, wiping the HDD and then reinstalling windows.

[aimeeandbeatles]

Smash it with a sledgehammer.

[Genocidicbunny]

Originally Posted by aimeeandbeatles

Smash it with a sledgehammer.

Data would still be recoverable by any half-decent data recovery lab. On the other hand, doing a write-over wipe a few times will render it essentially unusable.

If you really want to physically destroy a drive, take off the HDD controller ( the PCB on the bottom ) and apply blowtorch to the rest. This will make the atoms in the actual platters go above their Curie point and effectively destroy any data.

[really]

Thanks folks, I will try those out.

[aimeeandbeatles]

Originally Posted by stickciv

Data would still be recoverable by any half-decent data recovery lab.

Not if you don't know it used to be a HDD!

[Bestbank Tiger]

I think there's a program called Killdisk too.

[Aramazd]

Originally Posted by aimeeandbeatles

Not if you don't know it used to be a HDD!

That would involve a lot smashing. Even the blow torch would be an easier method.

[lndm]

Seriously though, who other than Gil Grissom would find a lightly bent up hard drive lying in the street and try a data recovery on it? Firstly, who knows whether it holds the answers to life the universe and everything, grannys recipes or some kids raving MSN logs on it.

Secondly knowing that the small cracks in the recording surface will mean repeated data loss in the stream, and therefore files will be incomplete requiring weeks or months of a team to interpolate and guess the missing parts and only after (thirdly) the time it takes to modify the bent platter, reinstate the missing/broken drive electronics, extract the raw data and rebuild that data into a workable partition/filesystem structure....if at all possible....and then only if it was found within a very short period of time so that the surface of the disk wasn't tarnished, or had suffered temperature damage, or the substrate had become water or acid affected and lost adhesion to the surface.

An organisation would have better things to spend their money on and all the individuals with enough time on their hands to do this are currently tied up on some internet forum somewhere

[Cutlass]

Originally Posted by stickciv

Data would still be recoverable by any half-decent data recovery lab. On the other hand, doing a write-over wipe a few times will render it essentially unusable.

If you really want to physically destroy a drive, take off the HDD controller ( the PCB on the bottom ) and apply blowtorch to the rest. This will make the atoms in the actual platters go above their Curie point and effectively destroy any data.

Shotgun blast then

[Aramazd]

Originally Posted by lndm

Seriously though, who other than Gil Grissom would find a lightly bent up hard drive lying in the street and try a data recovery on it? Firstly, who knows whether it holds the answers to life the universe and everything, grannys recipes or some kids raving MSN logs on it.

Secondly knowing that the small cracks in the recording surface will mean repeated data loss in the stream, and therefore files will be incomplete requiring weeks or months of a team to interpolate and guess the missing parts and only after (thirdly) the time it takes to modify the bent platter, reinstate the missing/broken drive electronics, extract the raw data and rebuild that data into a workable partition/filesystem structure....if at all possible....and then only if it was found within a very short period of time so that the surface of the disk wasn't tarnished, or had suffered temperature damage, or the substrate had become water or acid affected and lost adhesion to the surface.

An organisation would have better things to spend their money on and all the individuals with enough time on their hands to do this are currently tied up on some internet forum somewhere

This post reminded me of this comic.

[lndm]

.

[really]

I got around to this last weekend - I went with the "take out the hard drives and hit them with a sledgehammer" method

[civ_king]

Originally Posted by Aramazd

This post reminded me of this comic.

My router password is 32 characters, roughly 1/3 letter, 1/3 numbers, 1/3 Chinese in other words if I don't want you on it you can't be on it

[Speedo]

Originally Posted by Genocidicbunny

Data would still be recoverable by any half-decent data recovery lab.

I don't exactly think the average person is in danger of someone spending thousands of dollars doing data recovery on a drive they trash, unless maybe that drive was full of kiddie porn.

[Tarkhan]

Originally Posted by civ_king

My router password is 32 characters, roughly 1/3 letter, 1/3 numbers, 1/3 Chinese in other words if I don't want you on it you can't be on it

Mine is ten easy to guess numbers. Because 99% of people won't bother trying if it has any security at all :P

[Abaddon]

Originally Posted by really

I got around to this last weekend - I went with the "take out the hard drives and hit them with a sledgehammer" method

shame to kill off a working computer IMO

[really]

Originally Posted by Abaddon

shame to kill off a working computer IMO

They have gone to the recycling center and I am not sure what the people at Galway County Council do with them.

One of them was failing, the other one gave so much trouble I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

[Aramazd]

Originally Posted by civ_king

My router password is 32 characters, roughly 1/3 letter, 1/3 numbers, 1/3 Chinese in other words if I don't want you on it you can't be on it

I'm not sure how that's relevant to my post. Especially since the link refers to do with hard drive encryption.