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CAR141

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Permanently delete data

Our business is closing and we have a couple of computers we would like to sell. There is data on the hard drive we need to permanently remove so it cannot be recovered by anyone. We would like to leave Windows XP, Microsoft Office, etc. on the computer. What is the best way to make data unrecoverable?  I know CCleaner has a drive wiper that overwrites free space. I've read that Eraser (SourceForge) also will overwrite free space.  Any suggestions on how to do this, or cautions, would be appreciated.
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IanTh
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Its not possible to clean a machine back to factory without re-imaging - so I would investigate if the machines have a recovery partition (many do) or better yet, a recovery cd, then overwrite *just* the active os, and recover.
with modern drives, you don't need a fancy erasure program for that, just use a linux live cd and dd :)
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Tom1981

You need to write zeros to the drive.  Only way to permanently delete data is to overwrite it several times.  DOD standard is a seven pass overwrite.  If you have any kind of personal data on these systems, you'll want to overwrite the entire disk before re-imaging.  

I have successfully recovered files from hard drives that we have formatted and reinstalled the OS.  These recovery tools are pretty simple to come by.  

If your data is sensative (CC numbers, SS numbers, or any other personal information that could be misused) it is important to make sure the data is destroyed properly.
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i suggest to use BCWIPE it is designed for that :  www.jetico.com/wiping-bcwipe
@nobus:
BCWipe is a waste of money - it does nothing that heidi's erasor cannot do, but does it for a fee.... also, with cleandown of an old xp instance, the issue is locating the files that need to be removed (and registry keys, and per-package settings), not securely removing them.
@Tom: and if you do that, what will happen to the XP installation?
any idiot can run DBAN. It takes a lot more to have a usable OS afterwards.
davehowe, you do not have to answer me - instead, concentrate on answering the asker's question
from your post, i assume you never used bcwipe
@Nobus:

  Still waiting on a response to the post #38214757 - however, yes, I used to buy BCWipe licences, and stopped when erasor got to be just as good, for free. I also have a preference for open source over closed source, as you can see what OSS does "under the hood" - early releases of BCWipe (for example) had a bug where it would not erase at all if you told it to do one pass - which is quite a bug, you must admit - but it was discovered by a due-dilligence recovery attempt after a wipe, not by someone at the company (so had that not happened, the bug might *still* be there)

  I feel that its just as important to correct bad advice on here as to give good :)
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ASKER

Well, there is a lot of disagreement among experts. I would prefer not having to purchase software if there is a free one that will work. No one seems to agree that there is anything that really works other than destroying the hard drive and then I had better cut it into little pieces.

If I delete the files I don't want anyone to be able to recover and then run Eraser to overwrite the free space, which I assume includes the location where the files I deleted were located, will they be unrecoverable?

Where can I locate and download DBAN? I have an older computer and I might totally erase the hard drive if DBAN will make its data unrecoverable. I went to the DBAN page and clicked the download button but nothing downloaded.

Does anyone really know what will work or is it all just opinion?
link for dban :    http://www.dban.org/
bc wipe lets you erase the free space, to make it unrecovereable - up to you to decide what is bad  - and good advice
Not sure why it didn't work, but this is the actual download link for the current "beta" version (They're all beta.): http://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/files/dban/dban-2.2.6/dban-2.2.6_i586.iso/download

Just wait a few seconds, and it should pop up asking whether you want to save, run, etc. It's an ISO image file. Burn it to a CD and then boot from it. It will make the drive unrecoverable, and yes, as DaveHowe so cleverly explained it, you will not have a usable OS or MS Office on the drive afterwards. It will be completely blank. You could, however, INSTALL an OS on it, or leave that for the people who will have it next to do.
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I downloaded dban, created the disk, set up an old xp computer for CD boot. It goes to DBAN but then the keyboard doesn't work and I can't enter the F2, F3, etc choices to run DBAN.
that'sd an usb keyboard - can you not use a ps/2 one?
I use it with a USB keyboard all the time. Check the BIOS, and make sure the USB ports are available on boot. A PS/2 keyboard would also solve the problem, but who has them anymore?
i have several of both
for the bios : look ifUSB is enabled in legacy settings - may be in the section integrated peripherals
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ASKER

Solution: There is no one solution and there is a lot of disagreement among experts. don't know how best to divide points. I suppose everything suggested would work. For 6 older computers not worth recovering I removed the hard drives, dismantled them, cut them up, broke them up - whatever - It was the best solution for me. I still have two computers worth saving and plan on using Secure Erase and then reinstalling windows XP PRO since I have plenty of recovery disks with valid product keys from those old Dell computers.
the mod in the uk actually drill old hdd's