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I have a used computer. Someone else wants it. I do not want my info stored therin to become public. What can I do to erase it entirely? An no, I do not trust the computer stores not to do a little browsing before wiping it clean.

Darrins Boot and Nuke or pull the HD drive out and physicaly destroy it, inform the new owner they will need to buy a new drive.

MtnHtr

I'm no expert but and others may have much better advice than me...

I've heard good things about the free software Hard Disk Scrubber - just make sure to check "heavy scrub" as an option.

First, you'd have to delete all the files you don't want recovered.
Scrubber would then see that as free space and "wipe" it

you can download it here

http://www.summitcn.com/download2.htm#scrub



If you want to wipe the entire drive, then you'd most likely need to boot from a CD or disk that would provide you access to the entire hard drive. A free program that does this is

LSoft Technologies' Active@ KillDisk

I'm not sure how easy it would be to use.

I'm mostly concerned about financial data, id theft etc.. Have you guys actually used these products? Can you give a first hand recommendation?

The only sure way is to physically destroy your hard drive. DBN and others rely on "overwrite" technology, IIRC. They highly tout it as being the same method the NSA and other like entities use. I think there is still some chance of recovery.

Not really. If you do the overwrite several times at random then the hacker cannot simply flip the orientation of the bits on the HD to retrieve info.

I use DBAN here at work to scrub all patient demographic info from HD's being returned to the warehouse. If you are too paranoid to trust DBAN ( satisfies DoD requirements ) you don't want a computer to begin with.

Okay, one last question. It was the ex's computer. The only reason I quit using it is that her name pops up as owner and in a couple of apps. Will DBAN make that go away?

Hard drives are pretty cheap these days. Why not simply buy a new drive and swap out the old one? You (or the new owner) will have to reinstall the OS but that shouldn't be a big deal either. Good luck.

I'm in the business and I agree with the replacement strategy. Besides you should be able to use the older drive in your new computer. If it doesn't fit there are external adapters.

There's usually nothing in the bios/root that should be of any privacy risks.