Posted By Tom Gorman The Organisation I work for removes the hard drives from old computers before they are taken for disposal.Thereafter, to ensure that sensitive information cannot be accessed from the hard drive the staff hit the drive with a hammer. Having witnessed this in operation with small pieces of metal and plastic flying everywhere, I have requested that this practice be halted. I realise that there are a number of software packages and equipment available on the market to erase information on the drives, and was wondering if any Forum Member has details of such systems, which work and are cost effective. Many thanks Tom

Posted By Tom Gorman Geoff, Thanks very much for the offer. I am meeting some IT personnel tomorrow and the information in the article would be helpful. Regards, Tom

Posted By Neil Pearson I'm sure one of the packages in Geoff's article will be Norton Systemworks. You don't actually need to install the software, simply run it from the CD and it will wipe the media so that no-one can recover data from it.

Posted By Jason Gould Always thought strong magnet would do the job after formatting. This surely should be simple to solve in other methods apart from smashing with hammer.

Posted By Paul Bellis There are lots of freeware and shareware packages which do the job effectively for the levels you are looking for. Try this website discussion which points you to several effective products- http://www-tcsn.experts-.../Storage/Q_20709999.html , However for a comprehensive 100% guaranteed totally unrecoverable data removal of very sensitive information, that someone determined with the right hardware/software wanted to get into the data ( such as the Police ) you would have to destroy the disk I would have thought, heat would seem the safest option - applied by a controlled method of course!

Posted By Dave Wilson Just spoke to our IT people and the only way is to reformat but to be really sure they have to be destroyed. You could remove the casing and then destroy the drive.

Posted By Michael Miller Last but not least The easiest way to remove data permanently from a PC is to flatten it electronicaly. This is what you do to remove a virus. It is a simple action (just hit the right keys) and bingo, your computer when switched on is like brand new with nothing on it! Any IT person should know this and it is much safer. Good Luck Mike