Re: Cleaning hard drive
A very effective (and only practical) way to wipe a hard drive ,is to run a utility that overwrites every sector on the hard drive. Anything else leaves traces of personal data which can be recovered. Magnets don't work , restore points won't do it either. Data has been recovered 7 layers deep on previously erased hard drives. Nothing short of physically destroying the platters is guarantees total data elimination.<br /><br />If it were me, and I had to return a hard drive, with sensitive data , I'd do this:<br />Go here
Hirens <br />Download the Hirens ISO image of the utility CD<br />Burn the cd <br />Boot the system with the utility CD<br />Run the program "Active Kill Disk 1.1"<br /><br />After completion, re-install the operating system, or just return the computer.<br /><br />BTW, this utility CD has many useful utilities, but be careful. These utilities can do harm if used without fully understanding their function. They can be a real lifesaver too, when nothing else works.
