Erasing a hard drive

[Simpo Two]

I'm selling my old PC and want to erase the C drive. I understand that reformatting it using a Windows install disk (which I've done) doesn't really remove the data.

An IT friend recommend Killdisk but I can't get it to make a bootable floppy - it almost makes one, then hangs, and the PC won't boot from the result, as it's looking for something called 'FreeDOS'...

I'd like to sell the machine with the drive but not with any recoverable data. What other (free) alternatives are there please?

[grumbledoak]

Who are you selling it to ?

I gave my old PC to charity, so I settled for changing the partition size using fdisk, full reformat, and re-install Windows. I doubt they'll bother looking hard enough to find any data that remains...

[V8_Oatz]

You can't be too careful. I always use Boot N Nuke: http://dban.sourceforge.net/

[mcflurry]

PCPro had a utility on their coverdisc to do exactly this

[roadsweeper]

V8_Oatz said:

You can't be too careful. I always use Boot N Nuke: http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Seconded. I use this all the time for work.