BleepingComputer.com: Hard Drive Eraser

Greetings all,
I need to completely clean up a hard drive before I get rid of this computer. There was some sensitive information contained on the machine and I want to make sure there are no traces left. Is there a utility to clean up a drive without having to reformat completely?

Thanks

I use and recommend:

http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/

Since over-writing files is a non-reversal action, be sure to read the Help file carefully before using any application like this.

Regards,
John

There's also Active Killdisk here which runs from DOS. Overwrites the whole disk regardless of how many partitions it has -- destroys them all and the data they contain -- at low level. probably more secure than Eraser I would have thought. http://www.killdisk.com/

This post has been edited by pip22: 20 December 2006 - 05:30 AM

For hdd wiping purposes I can highly recommend you this product but unfortunately it is not free.

Well i'm gonna recommend one of my favorite hard drive utilities. Digital Dolly 1.0. This freeware utilities boots from a cd and has several wipe protocals. From a single pass "Quick Wipe" to a 38 pass (Black helicopter paranoid) "Gutman Wipe". It has over a dozen other hard drive and partition utilities. Very good wrench for the toolbox.

If you don't want to reformat the complete drive this is what I would do:

Dowload and install CCleaner. Under the Cleaner setting check all the boxs (windows and application). Then go Options, Settings and select Secure File Deletion (7 passes). Then go Cleaner and Run Cleaner and let it do its thing.

Then download and install Eraser (see jgweed's post above). Run Eraser and have it erase all the unused space on the hard drive (select File, New Task).

Then defrag your hard drive.

Then run Eraser again.