I have just bought a new PC and want to erase the data on the hard drive of my old PC before I dispose of it. Is formatting the hard drive the best way to do it and, if so, how?1 person needs an answerI do too

Simply format as usuall , formatting normally erase all data Sohail A Khan Hardware Network Professional VOTE A S HELP FULL IF THIS REALLY WORKS HELPS OTHER FIND ANSWER FASTER

The only sure fire way to destroy the data on the HDD is to physically destroy the disk. This is the only official way that is recognised by the security services etc. There are some programs that can make it hard to recover data but these are not 100% secure. Personally I have kept my broken drives, some that are several years old. I will get rid eventually.If you think my answers are helpful please vote and mark as possible answer. Thank you.

On 11/6/2010 10:55 AM, BillCo48 wrote:I have just bought a new PC and want to erase the data on the harddrive of my old PC before I dispose of it. Is formatting the harddrive the best way to do it and, if so, how?Formatting is not sufficient, files can easily be recovered from a formatted disk. Get a wiping utility and wipe the disk.Secure Erasehttp://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtmlor Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN")http://www.dban.org/John