I have an older pc that I am thinking about putting on ebay or in a moving sale and am a little unsure about “Erasing the hard drive” will this remove the operating system as well?
It sure will.
Yes it will remove the operating system.
If you are selling a computer with its orginal hard drive that you have used on ebay then you will want to enter Bios and select Write to Zeros. This will completely destroy all data on the disc. If you do it like 5 times not even CSI will be able to read the thing.
OK thank you - could you please elaborate on the bios? How do I get there and is this all that I need to do to make sure someone does not get my info of the pc?
It depends on the computer. Del is the most common to enter bios. Usually the computer tells you want to hold down right when it starts up to enter bios/setup ect.
If you do not have a option like that and have a floppy you can burn the utilities disc for your hard drive (you get it off their site, and that will usually always have a write to zeros… come to think of it i doubt common motherboard would have the option as its not reversible, and thus not something a manufacture would want their customers doing).
You can never delete the stuff off the hardrive, no matter how hard you try but 32 passes is recommened by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutmann_method
maybe I am just better off selling parts…
^If you write to zeros no conventional technology can get stuff from the hard drive anymore.
Seb is just exaggerating, lol. A single pass with zeros will stop even the most experienced data recovers. If you want to sell it without a hard drive though go for it.
[QUOTE=Templarian;2326754]^If you write to zeros no conventional technology can get stuff from the hard drive anymore.
Seb is just exaggerating, lol. A single pass with zeros will stop even the most experienced data recovers. If you want to sell it without a hard drive though go for it.[/QUOTE]
I doubt one pass would do much.
Introduce your hard drive to a seriously strong magnet.
32 passes? That is very extreme - one will defeat the vast majority of people and 5 will defeat all bar some geek kids lurking in a CIA basement.
Rather than mess about with the BIOS, just download something like this:
http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
so this one will leave the os?
^Every method to rid of the data, will rid of the OS. You will need to reformat and reinstall it.
yes its a two step process
erase
install
not much more beyond taht
One of the IT guys here at work said they have this magnet-type thing they use to wipe hard drives…I forgot what it’s called but supposedly it wipes the hard drives in like 5-10 seconds.
okay thanks
It’s called a 14lb lump-hammer
You just hit the (literal) nail in the coffin. Good job.
One word: [U]dban[/U]
I second that, exactly what I used
I use one of these.
