wiping a hard drive on a laptop

me ^ | 4-15-11 | wobbly bob

[WOBBLY BOB]

I have a friend willing to GIVE me a free laptop but wants assurances it will be thouroughly wiped 1st.

since I have no deniro , is there an easy , free , portable way I can take something to his locale to do this there and in person so he can see that it's done?

(not a computer guru so a step by step printable guide would be best)

thanks in advance to all . my previous FRiends have been quite helpful in computer matters.

[WOBBLY BOB]

happy Friday.

[Defiant]

Reformat it. That should be good enough for him, unless he is in trouble with the NSA.

[devistate one four]

I heard an IT type mention to do a format on the hard drive.

[cripplecreek]

A new hard drive is pretty cheap. I bought one for under $50 and installed it myself and I have minimal skills.

However a laptop may be a whole other animal.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

[oh8eleven]

Google - reformat the hard drive.

[WOBBLY BOB]

easy on a PC, not so much on a laptop.

[Neidermeyer]

Plenty of freeware out there ,, This may not be the best but it’s the first I found ... http://filehippo.com/download_eraser/

[struwwelpeter]

Мне тоже приятно когда приходит пятница, но причем здесь креветки? ;-)

I don't know if I'd WANT to have in my possession a computer that once contained SOMETHING that the previous owner was very worried about anyone finding.

[Egon]

If he’s that worried, have him keep the drive and you purchase a new (probably much larger) one for around $60. They’re really not difficult to install.

[Wierzbowski]

Google “DBAN”. Free and easy!

[Greysard]

http://www.dban.org/

[posterchild]

Windows? Mac OS X? Linux?

[Tijeras_Slim]

I have no deniro

Well, there's wiping a hard drive, and there's really wiping a hard drive.

[Lurker]

C:format

[gimme1ibertee]

Happy Friday WB!
I have a tech-related question of my own....I have a Dell Dimension 4550 and the BIOS is A03....I tried to get the BIOS upgrade from Dell but to no avail.Guess my computer’s too outdated (2002)....There is an upgrade file (BIOS A08) on the Dell website but I can’t access it-it will download but when I try to open it,I get a message that says “No files available to download”...guess Dell doesn’t support Windows XP anymore. The Microsoft site was no help at all.I have Windows XP Home Ed.Can I get a bootable disk someplace so I can upgrade my BIOS? I’m not geek-level so I need it to be as simple as possible. Any ideas?

[braf]

If you're concerned that somebody might go to the trouble of trying to recover data after a reformat, there are programs that will "secure erase" (repeatedly overwrite) the drive.

Free Secure (Destructive) File and Disk Deletion Tools

[240B]

The best (only?) way to truly wipe a hard drive so that it would pass an FBI scan, is to replace it with a new one.

So many hidden records on a hard drive, you wouldn’t believe it. BTW, erasing a file does not erase the file. It just erases the index address to it.

Wiping a disk does not wipe a disk. With the right scan, authorities can see what was on the disk before it was wiped depending on the memory retention characteristics on the bit level.

New drive, destroy the old is the only way to be certain.

[KevinB]

I don't know if I'd WANT to have in my possession a computer that once contained SOMETHING that the previous owner was very worried about anyone finding.

I have all my financial information on my hard drive and all my client data, which I am duty bound to keep confidential. If I gave away my computer I'd want to be sure all that information was gone. Wanting the hard drive to be clean doesn't mean anyone has done anything wrong.

[bigbob]

Depending on how high his expectations are....