By Andrew Liszewski
From my own experience, the best way to ensure no one can recover files from an old hard drive is to simply dismantle it. Once all the screws get lost there’s no easy to way to reassemble it, and on top of that you get a set of wicked powerful magnets to play with.
But if the drive is still in working order and is large enough to be useful in another system, you might want to consider the Drive eRazer alternative. You simply connect the device to your old hard drive and it will erase all the files by writing a data pattern over the entire disk. If you’re extra paranoid there is also a ‘Pro Version’ that will perform multiple passes while writing random characters. A 250GB drive can be wiped in just under 2 hours and because the eRazer is a standalone device, it doesn’t require an actual computer during the process.
The Standard version of the Drive eRazer designed for 3.5 inch drives is $99.95, while the Pro version is $149.95. The Notebook Pro version is also $149.95 and there’s a Pro version ‘Versatile’ bundle that works on both drive sizes (using adapters) for $199.95.
[ Drive eRazer ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]
or you could get a Big hammer for a fiver and/or buy a new faster bigger drive… ps, the hammer is reuseable…