TowerDog

Will give old PC to the Salvation Army but have too much bank stuff and passwords to just ditch it without a good cleaning.
Hard drive won’t format, tried to google programs and downloaded a destroy and nuke program but it was rather page up and page down how the inventor invented it and I got lost in all the hype.
Is there a good program that has just one button: Click to Clean, Easy and Pilot Proof.

PPRuNe Towers

It's built into the Mac operating system's Disk Utility and its erase command with selectable levels of power. Total erase is a simple selectable option but really can take a fair bit of time to complete the process.

Rob

IBMJunkman

Take your pick. You will have to boot from a CD or thumb drive. I have used DBAN.

https://www.lifewire.com/free-data-d...ograms-2626174

Saab Dastard

You won't be able to format the system disk from within, as it were. You have to boot from an alternative location - Windows installation media or some other bootable device so that the drive you want to format is not the drive you have booted from.

Formatting alone won't necessarily remove your sensitive data however - you need something that actually overwrites all sectors on the disk.

I would use DBAN: https://dban.org/ - there's a good tutorial here: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-eras...g-dban-2619148

Note that DBAN (free version) won't work on SSDs, apparently.

SD

IBMJunkman

Your other option is to donate the PC but without the HD. Then physically destroy the HD.

TowerDog

Yup, that is the next step, the sledgehammer is in the garage and waiting.

Will try DBAN, thx

New ‘puter is Mac, old one is a Dell PC.

Ok, should not be a factor. Thx.

Edit: It just dawned on me that DBAN is the probably the same program I tried before, will try again with a fresh start...

le Pingouin

If you and DBAN don't get on here's a page with some alternatives - I'd suggest Parted Magic if you'd prefer something with a graphical interface

https://www.raymond.cc/blog/wipe-you...away/view-all/

golfbananajam

couple of articles for you to read, and I'm sure there are more (note that this is not a recommendation for either approach, just something to read so that you can make an informed choice). Whatever you choose to do, a simple delete *.* is not sufficient (but I think you know that already)

How to securely erase hard drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs) | ZDNet

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2617...ard_drive.html

TWT

I put old HDD's in a canvas bag and put them under my car tyre and drive over them a couple of times. Then empty the remains into a bin. The quickest and most secure way for me.

IBMJunkman

I just have fun taking them apart. Breakout my micro Torx driver set, open case, remove heads and magnet and disassemble the platter stack. Was surprised once when I found out the hard way the platters were glass.

MightyGem

Waste of a perfectly good hard drive. Put in an enclosure and use it as an external drive.

FullOppositeRudder

Exactly what I do. I allow myself to be amazed at the technology and the way in which these devices have been manufactured with ever greater speed, capacity and compactness. The magnets are very powerful and have found their way into other projects - extended reach to retrieve dropped screw etc. I even use one to secure the strut on the lid of my camping trailer.

Individual disks can be destroyed (with caution) or physically attacked with the magnets just liberated. Their mirrored surfaces can also be useful in the workshop / shed.

Screws are put into a glass jar - one never knows when one might be exactly what you need for another project. Or two as I discovered a couple of weeks ago.

The rest goes into the recycle rubbish bin.

FOR

TowerDog

Aye, today was the meet Jesus day for my hard drive:

Tried the above recommended DBAN once again but had no patience for burning the program to a CD, then do this and do that.
Instead I had slug of rum, pulled out a screw driver, opened the PC case, removed the 2 TB
Hard drive, kissed it goodbye and threw it in the deepest part of the canal behind my house.
(Here in Fort Lauderdale we live on canals like Venice. The crabs usually get left over veggies and seafood, today they got a hard drive. Bon appetite.)

Warmtoast

TowerDog


You could of course try 'defraggling' your HD as per the instructions below which would I think have achieved what you wanted to do.
I've had these instructions on my computer for over 15-years or so and cannot find the original site from where I downloaded it.
...and if you try defraggling your HD in the manner described don't blame me if things go wrong!