[general_re]

There are plenty of disk wiping programs out there that will clean disks beyond the ability of virtually anyone to read. If you're extra paranoid concerned - the NSA or CIA may want to see what you've been up to, for example - then you can always pull the drive out and physically destroy it. Bashing the case open and melting the platters with a blowtorch will make it unreadable by mortal men, just as an example of one possible method. Or just put the drive(s) back to work in your current machine(s) and don't dispose of them at all.

[advance_copy]

If you're extra paranoid concerned - the NSA or CIA may want to see what you've been up to, for example

Are you kidding? The CIA and NSA already know what you've been up to, and we they are starting to get a little annoyed.

[MarkL]

There are plenty of disk wiping programs out there that will clean disks beyond the ability of virtually anyone to read. If you're extra paranoid concerned - the NSA or CIA may want to see what you've been up to, for example - then you can always pull the drive out and physically destroy it

I've had certain government agencies as clients, and they wanted some hard drives replaced under warranty, and I had to explain to them that if they wanted the drives replaced under warranty, the drives had to be shipped back to the manufacturer.

The way they "wiped" the drives was putting them through a metal shredder! It's hard to recover data from 1/2" square shards of metal!

Mark