There is no way to *completely* wipe a hard drive except, as has been mentioned, bust up the drive and burn the discs. However it's usually not that bad. Easiest way to do it is delete all the "naughty" files then Scandisk and Defrag. Files are stored in fixed-length segments on the hard drive and usually non-sequentially: The FAT table points to the beginning of each segment. When you defrag deleted segments are usually overwritten and, in the case of long binary files (pictures, music, compiled code, etc.), any segments not overwritten are usually unrecoverable. There's not information there to reassemble Humpty-Dumpty or even tell what parts are Humpty's and what aren't. For the true paranoid there are programs on the net that will overwrite unused segments with random 0's and 1's repeatedly so that only the most exotic technology out there could make any sense of the mess. It's easy enough to do this yourself: Delete the "naughtiness", defrag to collect all the empty space then find a small, innocuous JPEG and save copies of this until your disc fills up. Delete these and do it again with another JPEG. Rinse, repeat, until you feel you've confused the issue sufficiently.

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Wow, Wow, Ok how do I save 30kb Jpeg repeatedly to fill up 40GB hard drive? Thanks man Lider

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Write a script in your favorite programming language to save a picture of Barney as, say, Clean_(x).jpg", where (x) is 1 - 9999999999999, inside a DO-LOOP (start with x=1 and add 1 each loop) until the disk fills up. Then delete "clean_*.jpg" to recover the disk space. Defrag first so you don't miss any nooks and crannies. It will take awhile depending on your hd size. This will do for most purposes. Of course, the deleted file names will still be in your FAT so you may want to repartition on top of this if you don't want anyone to know you've scrubbed your hd. Norton Utilities has a program to do this automatically, iirc.

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Even Spybot has a built in shredder that overwrites data with 1' and zero's and the program allows you to go over it up to 100 times , someone would have a real hard time recovering something that has been overwritten 100 times with random 1' and 0's .

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OK, I don't know any programming language. HTML only, which is website thing. I don't know how to program a thing that would write some file 100000000000000000000 times. See what I mean? The website that I provided overwrites the thing with 0s and 1s so I don't know.... Any help on programming the thing? Thanks.... Killer Lider

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You might be able to go to the drive manufacturers website and find their diagnostics. Usually, there is an option in there somewhere to do a low-level format. This truly wipes the disk clean and lays down a fresh new format. When it's done, nothing will be left of the original data. The normal Format command only sets up the headers but doesn't touch the old data. This makes it easy for savvy programmers or hackers to retrieve it. Not hard to do at all; there are all kinds of softwere tools out there for that. In the days before Windows we all had to know how to do a low-level format. I could probably dig up the old DOS commands for it, using DEBUG. However, the drives have evolved since then, with the disk controller actually built into the hard drive. In order to do a low-level format you must be able to get past the controller, directly addressing the heads and sectors. The only one who knows how to do this is the drive manufacturer, and even then you are warned of the possible dire consequences. Makes the hammer approach almost look good, doesn't it? There are possible ways to do it, it just depends on your level of paranoia. Along that line, I was reading the other day about how everything you have ever done on the internet is still out there on the servers and it can all be retrieved! Even long after you thought you have deleted it. That's scary! HTH Bob

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I get called upon occasionally by a couple of doctor's surgeries to wipe their old drives & I use a program called Autoclave. Don't know where it's obtainable from on its own but it's part of the Ultimate Boot Disk which I'd recommend everyone to download as it's free & full of all sorts of useful utilities especially manufacturer's drive utilities, testing utilities, boot managers & loads more - including Autoclave & a couple of other data destroyers. The .iso is available from http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/download.html "I know that I'm mad - I've always been mad..."

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How am I supposed to find my drive manufacturer? I had to take the laptop to a shop once, in order for them to change the hard drive from 20gb to 40 gb one. So i don't know which one they have on it right now. Is there any sofware available to tell me that? Lider

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In Device Manager look under Disk drives and it should at least give you the model number then put that into Google & see which manufacturer's name comes up. Alternatively use a program called Everest - freeware available all over the place - I use www.majorgeeks.com - it lists all the hardware/software on your system. "I know that I'm mad - I've always been mad..."

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"OK, I don't know any programming language..." Son, it's time you expanded your horizons; took control of your own destiny, grew a pair and became a man, etc. Or you can just d/l one of the utilities the others have suggested and leave the driving to the experts.

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Dude.....(and any others referenceing this subject) Curt R has the right idea. If this issue is indeed extremely critical....then, by definition, that means that if the information was recovered, the consequences would be DIRE. They're getting pretty cheap. IF the above is the case.....isn't avoiding the possibility of DIRE consequenses worth the cost of a new notebook HD? HOWEVER, if the results of the data being recovered are not Dire AND there is very little possibility that anyone will pay the large sums charged to recover a zero-out drive....just spring a few bucks for a Pay version of SpyBot. Then... - Reformat the drive - Reload Windows - Defrag - Do the SpyBot zero-out feature the max 100 times. If you're really concerned, isn't peace of mind worth the price of Spybot? Shoot...there are probably some free single-function utilities out there that will zero-out drives....so you'd only be out the time. Excuse me while I check. (pause 15 seconds before continuing) . . . . . . Well, lookie here: http://www.download.com/AbsoluteShield-File-Shredder/3000-2092_4-10164976.html?tag=lst-0-1 Pretty cheap for a little Peace-of-Mind. HTH

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Ooops..... Upon reading closely....use THIS free program instead: http://www.download.com/Simple-File-Shredder/3640-2092_4-10377949.html?tag=tab_ur So many came up after a search...I just grabbed one. There are several others at download.com if you search by "shred" and specify to only return FREE License. But this one looks fine. > PLEASE CONTRIBUTE to Computing.net - Report back which suggestions did/didn't help. <

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here another choice,,, MSI 845e mb 768 mb ram and a p4 2.4n running xp ,win 2000 advanced server and win 98 SE alot to learn and I know so little !!!!

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Don't worry. If the FBIers know what they're doing, they'll start with checking the servers you've been on. Usually, by the time you get to the home computer, you're merely talking about corroborating what you already know.

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There's a good article here which gives you step by step instructions. http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000473036054/ Pretty simple, just boot the CD and run a single command and it will wipe the drive. ...oh yeah, and it's free.

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