Re: Erasing 2nd Internal Hard drive

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"denmarfl" <denmarfl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:D1EC2F7F-502E-4BB7-9419-ED78098AED60@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The manufacturer of my PC provided me with a New Imaged Hard drive. My old
drive was working fine except it had some pre-installed software on it that
could not be removed and could cause conflicts. The manufactiurer wants the
old Hard drive returned. The old drive has some senitive personal
information on it so I am reluctant just to pack it up and return it.

I have done some research about how to wipe off all information on a Hard
drive before donating a PC, etc......but all I have read is very complicated
and I am not comfortable in proceedding following any of the processes.

Keeping in mind, I am not erasing the Hard drive with my PC's OS on it,
(although the Old drive still has an OS on it). I can connect the OLD drive
as a 2nd Internal drive....and than proceed to Wipe it Clean before returning
it.

Surely there must be an easy, simple process for someone with limited
computer knowledge to wipe a 2nd Internal Hard drive clean of all data so
that no one could access any information off that drive....

Hopefully someone has an easy process\answer for me...thank you



The easiest way would be to hookup the Old Drive, and reinstall Windows Vista on it. REFORMAT before doing the fresh install. The New install should overwrite a lot of disk space. Disk recovery of files may show some file names to the manufacturer's curious employees, but I don't think they could salvage anything useful. I have not tried this procedure ... just a shot-in-the-dark.

You could Google for software to do this. I believe some free software has options to "clean" old files beyond just deleting them.

good luck,
- Net


.

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