Preparing to sell my computer (HD wiping)

[powder]

Hello! I am selling my computer and I want to make sure that whoever buys it cannot recover my stuff. I know that it is probably impossible to permanently remove all traces of data on a hard drive without grinding it up, but I want to make sure that everyone short of federal agencies will fail at the task.

So far, I have used DBAN, and I hope that that will be adequate. I ran the Mersenne twister PRNG for 10 passes and then ran the Gutman wipe (35 rounds) for one pass.

Hard drives are mysterious stuff to me to I want to make sure that I did a thorough job. Right now, it is pretty much impossible for data recovery software to recover my data, correct? It would be up to the scientists with their advanced microscopy techniques, I hope.

I'd appreciate any feedback that anybody might have, and any other advice before I sell my computer.

Before I sell it, I might want to test it out and see if anything is recoverable. What data recovery programs have you found to be capable?

Thank you for your time!

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

I use G-Disk... it is a DOD standard software on a bootable CD that I got from work. As far as I am told, 1 pass with that (takes forever and a day) and data is not recoverable.

I haven't used data recovery programs since I started using Seagate hard drives years ago, and can't recall the name of what I used.. it was a freeware trial.

 

[superdave1984]

Seems like an awful lot of trouble for a PC you are selling. Why not just buy a new drive if you are that worried and put that in there instead? You can get a 40GB drive for less than $50.

 

[OatesyX]

a simple way to do it is to fill the harddrive by say encoding a huge video and whiping it,, theres tools to reset the hard drive to 0s , takes a while though,, theres always a way to get the data back(just costs alot) unless you pop the hd in the microwave

 

[powder]

Thanks, I'll check out G disk.

This isn't a lot of trouble. It's not hard to boot up and run a couple wipes.

 

[peterhuang913]

One word: Neodymium.