Any tips/advice on disposing of an old computer so I can make sure my info does not fall into the wrong hands? Dell (who I bought my new computer from) offers a free computer disposal service with the purchase of a new pc, has anyone had any experience with this service and can tell me if its a good idea or not? Will running the system recovery that came with my pc erase any/all of my files, in addition to setting it back to factory? Any advice or suggestions on safe system disposal, both from a security standpoint and convience would be much appreciated, thanks.

What? You're not going to sell it to that kid? He seemed so... desperate (in fact, annoyingly so) Killdisk has already been suggested, as you may recall (among others) Computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1 1/2 tons. - Popular Mechanics, 1949

LOL, no, no I'm not going to sell it to that kid, annoying is an understatement, and frankly it sounded suspicious. Anyway, yes, killdisk seems like a good solution, just can never have enough feedback. That seems to take care of the security aspect, just wondering about the disposal at this point. Thank you for taking so much interest in my post ;)

Well, a determined and skilled individual may be able to get something after a drive has been overwritten repeatedly, but most couldn't. To be sure, it is prudent to do more than merely deleting files or formatting. Personally, the donation option seems like a win/win situation, but anything's better than the whole unit going direct to landfill - we've made a lot of these things in the last 20 odd years, out of a host of exotic compounds. At any rate, bound to be some other input Computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1 1/2 tons. - Popular Mechanics, 1949

Frankly, I would remove the HDD and smash it to smithereens, end of story. If someone wants the machine a small HDD is only about $20/$30. When I worked at a high security site that's precisely what we did. There are some very serious high tech. methods of reading data off HDD's which were supposedly "wiped" Bob Mitchell. "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." - Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

If you're going to landfill the machine strip out anything useful first. I always keep the HD and, if it's still OK, use it for backup media on drive D:. One of these days I'll get a network tower and install them all to this instead. If you're going to donate the machine a low-level format will be OK unless you have really sensitive data on the HD. Even if so most script kiddies won't have access to the tools necessary to physically dig into the media to extract data. Leave it with the basic O/S and the system CD so the next owner has something to work with.

Killdisk will remove all data. It would take the resources of the ASA to retrieve any info from a drive erased by killdisk.