Secure Wipe of HDD?

[viran]

Hi, I have just carried out a system restore of my A115 using the Restore/Application Disc that came with the laptop. I am looking to sell the laptop and then I realised I need to carry out a wipe of the drive to remove the previous data.

Ideally I would like to use a utility to format the drive and overwrite existing data with random or meaningless bits before using the recovery dvd. However, will this affect any hidden partitions and render the recovery disc useless?

Failing that, will copying large meaningless or useless files back to the drive into the free space and then using a 7 pass wipe or similar using Window Washer etc suffice?

TIA

Had a search but there was alot of stuff about Sonic Stage and Vaio Pockets lol 😕

[robpaxton]

Perform a full recovery using your recovery DVD/CDs or partition. Then run Eraser to wipe the free space and file/cluster tips. You can choose different methods for the overwrite/wipe.

[kee-lo_]

Apparently there are low level formatting tools but they're not suggested, Rob's route is the best

[viran]

thanks, just what I was looking for