- guardian.co.uk, Saturday October 11 2008 00.01 BST
- The Guardian, Saturday October 11 2008
Is there a cheap (preferably free) program that will wipe the contents of both Macs and PCs? I have a couple of old computers I want to get rid of, but am concerned about sensitive data remaining.
Lots of us recycle our computers by passing them on to friends, schools or other worthwhile causes, but it's worth thinking about what will happen to the data on your machine. Simply deleting files won't be enough to stop someone getting hold of them, should they want to. That's why you can sometimes recover lost files or photos even if they seem to have been erased.
The most effective way to wipe a disk is to copy over every single piece of information again and again with blank data, until all trace has gone. Macs have a built-in tool for this, Disk Utility (it's in the applications/utilities folder), but to be sure that everything has gone, set it to pass over your drive the maximum 35 times. It will take a while, but it's worth it.
For a Windows PC, I'd recommend downloading a free tool such as Darik's Boot And Nuke (dban.org) or Secure Erase from the University of California (icanhaz.com/erase). They're not so straightforward, but the accompanying instructions should help you through.
