prepare old PC for donation

[VicBarb]

Hi, I have 2 old PCs, both Windows 98. I want to donate them to a school or non-profit org. but want to make sure all personal info. is off them first.
If I delete all word docs, excel files, etc. are they really gone? I've stored tax, credit card info. etc. over the years ... can someone still access them if I've deleted the files ?
Is there some way to delete abosolutely everything except the operating system?

Thanks for your help!

[Flame]

They say that a hard disk is never clean once used. Even if you delete the files, they say that someone could still find a way to access them... Sounds weird, but could you donate it without a hard disk?

Flame

[VicBarb]

Thanks. I wondered about that too. I think that's what I'll do just to be sure.... now for the fun of trying to get the case off so I can find the harddrive !  

Thanks for your help!

[GX1_Man]

Killdisk:

http://killdisk.com/

[Fed]

If you have an xp disk or 98 boot disk you can boot to it, delete the partitions & format the HDD.
Of course reading the question helps.
Vote 1 for KillBox.

[Ted2]

Killdisk:

http://killdisk.com/

Does it also delete the OS? searched site.. it's not even in the "Common Questions" :-?
I'm guessing it does, since the aim is to delete all... dumb question maybe? :-?

So what is actualy the point of hard drives keeping a record arfter a reformat? Is it not to keep track of anything that the authorites may want to find?
If so, then how is this killdisk software 'Microsoft Certified' ?

I guess if your looking to reformat and have an OS on disk killdisc would be a better option? weird how reformat does not do the same job?

[Rob Pomeroy]

Data recovery doesn't consist just in finding what is on the hard drive (but hidden) but also what WAS on the hard drive.  I do not know much about the technology, but I believe it involves detailed examination of the hard drive's magnetic surfaces, looking for faint "ghosting" that indicates what data was there before it was erased.  Programs like KillDisk are designed to overcome this problem, typically by repeatedly writing random (or irrelevant) data to every sector of the hard drive.  The more times this is done to a hard drive, the harder it becomes to detect the "ghost" of old data.

[Ted2]

Ohhhh i see...

I was thinking that maybe killdisc would clean the hard drive more than what a normal re-format could, which just didn't make sense to me.
But using killdisc is not like "cleaning" the disc it's more like a complete overwrite?
Makes sense now... still does not explain how this software could be free to download... maybe it's a lie, and doesn't work at all... Big brother is watching you!!! 8-)

[Scourged]

Theres a lot of software out there for securely erasing the contents of hard drives.
Youve got one free eraser already in debug.exe but if you dont want to use that look for any of the Bart type bootable utility cds that are freely available.

[seamanken]

I may be way off base here but I understand that a hard drive is never erased once used, old data just gets written over. I also understand that you can get programs that write over the disc some much that it hides or deletes any data that was there. could be wrong on this just what I heard