Got a couple of work HDD's that have been upgraded. Palming off the other drives. What file shedding, data altering FREEWARE are you using?

Hammer drill?

active killdisk
comes on the ultimate boot cd
http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

Darik's Boot and Nuke

cheers guys - hermi =

Most of that software still won't destroy the data 100%.

It basically comes down to how much money someone has to want to recover the data. Regardless of how much you wipe/overwrite the data, there are still magnetic traces of previous data due to the imperfections in the way the drive head positions itself and rotation inaccuracies, etc.

With enough time and money you can recover quite a lot crazily-overwritten data. Even many of the methods that people think up (hitting with hammer, dropping off bridge, driving over, etc) still can lead to recovery.

perhaps you can wrap it in copper wire and run a massive current through it?

open it up, take an angle grinder to the platters and leave nothing but dust.

Apparently for $2000+ you can buy a 'degaussing machine' to wipe drives, so perhaps some sort of home made version of this. http://degausser.com/

just empty the recycle bin - a lot of people forget this, which is why their data is recoverable

yelling at them also helps

rare earth magnet on top of it overnight. nps.

^ You know there are really powerful magnets right next to the hdd heads right? lol

You want to use DBAN, that will do it.

^ You know there are really powerful magnets right next to the hdd heads right? lol

But the field doesn't extend much outside their shielding. Take one out & put a screw driver on the top, it barely even sticks.

I see a truck driving around with Shred-X written all over it, seems they shred documents/hard drives, probably not much good if you're selling them but depends how paranoid your company is.

Smash hdd, grind to dust, shoot dust into the sun. That should cover it.

http://www.derok.net/derok/images/classics/tmnt shredder.gif

+1 for DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke)

What about File Shredder ? Supports the DoD 5220-22.M algorithm and Guttman algorithm (35 passes). I like the context menu item. You can right click on any file or selection of files and go 'securely delete'

format?

bit locker?

quick format

lower the hard drive into a pool of molten steal, it's the only way to be sure