Ive read somewhere that there is a difference in formating the hard drive and wiping it. Is this true and where could I get wiping software or what is the name of some I am planning to sell my PC but I don't know if formatting is enough to erase all of the data I ever had on there.

Formatting just rewrites the FAT (File Allocation Tables, there's two, a main and a backup copy). The rewrite lists the platter areas (blocks and sectors) as being available to receive data. The data in the areas remains until something new is written to the blocks.

A wipe writes data (usually zeros) to the areas at least once, and depending on the "program" or utility, a chosen number of times.

A Google search;
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=...ies+free&meta=

Copy a utility to a bootable media (floppy, CD, flash drive, etc), boot the machine with this media, and run the utility.

I've only used Active Kill Disk, but I've read good things about Darik's Boot & Nuke;
http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Originally Posted by Dan Penny

Formatting just rewrites the FAT (File Allocation Tables, there's two, a main and a backup copy). The rewrite lists the platter areas (blocks and sectors) as being available to receive data. The data in the areas remains until something new is written to the blocks.

A wipe writes data (usually zeros) to the areas at least once, and depending on the "program" or utility, a chosen number of times.

A Google search;
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=...ies+free&meta=

Copy a utility to a bootable media (floppy, CD, flash drive, etc), boot the machine with this media, and run the utility.

I've only used Active Kill Disk, but I've read good things about Darik's Boot & Nuke;
http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Thank you for the information I am using Active Kill Disk right now and it seems to be working fine.

You're welcome. Thanks for posting back with your results.

Ah one question in Active Killdisk what does the Verification % mean and do? I had mine set to 40% at default what does it do and do I need to re-wipe it and put it at 100%?

"5.2.1 Verification
After erasing is complete you can direct the software to perform verification of the surface on the drive to be sure that the last overwriting pass was performed properly and data residing on the drive matches the data written by the erasing process.

Because verification is a long process, you may specify a percentage of the surface to be verified. You may also turn the verification off completely."

From;
http://www.killdisk.com/notes1.htm

User Guide Download;
http://www.killdisk.com/downloads/killdisk.pdf

It worked fine but now when I install a fresh copy of XP it changes the default hard drive letter from C: to H:. How can I change this back?

You cannot change the drive letter on which the O/S is installed.

You either have two partitions, two hard disks, or XP setup found sufficient space on the "C" hard disk to create a new partition, "H".

Setup should have presented choices of available partitions on which to install windows.

Well I formated and went to install it still came up to create a partition and it came up with H: but then I made it deleted it and tried it again it changed to C: it was a bit weird but I got it working.

Thank you for all your help you can close this if you like.

You're welcome.


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