How does one erase an internal hard drive when said drive is no longer hooked up to a computer and you don't have access to another computer? Then what's the best way to dispose of the drives? [more inside]
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Sep 22, 2012 - 19 answers

I'm trying to prep a PC for donation/craigslist by wiping the drive. DBAN won't boot from the CD drive, and neither will KillDisk. [more inside]
posted by lvanshima on Nov 13, 2011 - 12 answers

Looking for a way to wipe (for disposal) old hard drives without swapping them into my desktop. [more inside]
posted by ApathyGirl on Aug 22, 2010 - 26 answers

I need to send my computer back to its manufacturer, as it's broken, and they've sent me a replacement. I would like to erase everything from the hard drive. Can you recommend some software to do this? It's a Windows 7 laptop with a single (though partitioned) hard drive. [more inside]
posted by bluefly on Jun 29, 2010 - 14 answers

I have an external hard drive that I'm sending back to the manufacturer due to an issue. I already have all of the data off of it, but (thankfully), a few days after I got the data, the thing is dead. The question: how do I erase all of the data off of it even if I can't boot it up? [more inside]
posted by SNWidget on Apr 6, 2009 - 10 answers

How is data on my hard drive retrievable even after it is written over? [more inside]
posted by pixlboi on Jul 18, 2008 - 16 answers

What's the best way to erase my hard drive for resale if I don't have original OS reinstall CDs to work with? [more inside]
posted by rhoticity on Feb 29, 2008 - 13 answers

How to wipe a dead hard drive? After backing up my data to a recently purchased external drive, it promptly failed (and produced a horrible, burning electronics odor). As I'm still within the 14 day return policy, I shouldn't have any trouble returning it. However: I want to wipe all of my personal data from the drive first. How to do that with a drive that won't mount? [more inside]
posted by aladfar on Oct 29, 2007 - 16 answers

How do I clean the data off these old hard drives without using software or a mallet? [more inside]
posted by jamaro on Aug 10, 2007 - 14 answers