If you want to give it away, do a low level format. Ya, there may be some stuff still on there someone with the right software (it's damn expensive and not common at all) could get data off of it, but it's not likely.

"The universe is hostile, So impersonal. Devour to survive." - Tool

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Pro data recovery groups can get stuff off failed HDDs but if the platter itself is fucked - there's nothing that can be done.

So in short; HDD out - platters out - destroy with hammer.

Have fun, it's a great stress reliever

"The universe is hostile, So impersonal. Devour to survive." - Tool

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boot from cd then use any of the Hard Disk Wiping programs.

of you can download Active@ KillDisk
http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm

and boot off a floppy disc, that is; if you still have a floppy drive.

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- -B -I -G -m -i -k -e, here and there, over and out! - -

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[an old man dies, a little girl lives. fair trade.]

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For most people just remove the old hard disk, put it in a cheap USB enclosure and run a "disk wipe" utility that completely overwrites a disk. Now you have a working computer to either donate or save for future needs.

If there's something more serious on there you don't want police to get to - a tax evasion plan, etc - then you may want a better wipe utility that makes repeated passes to wipe residual magnetism. I think Mac OSX has one. Without this it's possible to use a highly modified board and some other equipment and read the data that used to be there.

If you have National War Plans on the computer and have to worry about military intelligence agencies then you need to worry about RAM chips too. After doing the wiping above install unix and do "make buildworld" in a loop for a day or two. Otherwise they can use a SQUID and tell what used to be in the RAM for a week or two after it was last turned off. Hopefully you don't have to protect yourself from this level of attack.

The point it you can do fine without getting destructive. Certainly there is no need to go further than removing the material from the hard disk platter surface, and I've never gone even that far myself.

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Edited by - Asmodeus on 8/2/2006 9:48:48 PM

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Edited by - K on 8/3/2006 4:52:16 PM

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Safety glasses are a good idea.

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Did Mrs. 60 ever do this?

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Certainly not as fun as destroying the drive, but wiping is absolutely the thing to do if you're going to donate/sell/gift your old machines/DVR's/whatnot.

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Untill next year, they will finally release a software that will eliminate verything on the computers hard drive so u can re-use it if u wanted! (or sell it on) without people knowing what you had installed previously

How do u think the bloody Nigerans are HUGE scammers?
becuase all computer stuff that gets dumped goto Nigera !

- - Some one is watching over you

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