Eliminating Data from a Hard Drive

We decided to donate one of our three desktop computers to Goodill but were a bit concerned about the hard drive still containing personal data/information. Studying the situation on the web didn't ease our concerns. One of the quotes - "A simple delete, erase, re-format or even the fdisk command for Windows is not sufficient because there are many products which will bring back the data and software."

I didn't want one little hard drive to prevent me donating the computer - a Pentium 4 Extreme Edition to a worthy cause.




So I continued my research and finally found a tool that, when used properly, guarantees the data on the drive will no longer be accessible. The cost of the tool was ~$20 which was within my budget.



I removed the drive and took it down to the end of the driveway and went to town. Mission accomplished!