I am giving a friend an old hard drive. It has personal information on it from past legal matters. I want to be sure it has all been erased. What free utility is there which deletes all the data and then write "1's" and "0's" to make sure that all the previous data is gone??

TIA

This one is good: http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.

One is available on the Ultimate Boot CD
The other is avaliable on the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows

I would personally go with what CiTay (Eraser), and kwanbis (DBAN) recommended. Also the one that kwanbis recommended (DBAN) is used by portions of the U.S. government.

Another util that has a wipe feature is HDCleaner.

What a pool of talent to be able to dip into! I am grateful for your sharing of your knowledge. I am going to go with the Kwanbis suggestion as it is 1) used by government agencies which means it is probably pretty good, 2) easy and 3) free. I have two drives to clean so I will pull out my two WXP 250 GB drives, install the 120 GB and 160GB, run DBAN against them both and then run Gibson's SpinRite to be sure I am not giving this guy a piece of sticky brown stuff.

Thanks, again, you guys for your help. I am truly appreciative.


PS - I am going to check out HDCleaner, too, just to see what it does and for possible future use.

I've only used the wiping feature in it, other than that I'm not to impressed with it. I personally prefer CCleaner and Eraser.

Eraser actually offers "government approved" wiping methods too, and it can delete hard drives using 'Darik's Boot and Nuke' method. Of course it's also easy to use and free.

Another vote for Darik's Boot and Nuke. I have personally used DBAN. It is the best one I could find that was free. It is one of those rare programs that is great even though it is free.