erasing data Forever?

[hopeful_builder]

Just sold an external Hard Drive and need to clear the data. I need to format it so the data cannot be recovered.

Is simply right clicking on it under my computer and Quick formatting from there sufficient?

 

[hopeful_builder]

Dban is good, runs external to windows.

http://www.dban.org/

Thanks RJC, this did the trick. Never knew that existed! Burnt to a CD and kept in the Media library.

 

[hopeful_builder]

For future reference, a quick format tells the system that the area on the HDD containing the data is available for storage - it's still there until it is overwritten with new data.

Thanks vinnie, I had no idea. I knew how to format but I wasn't sure exactly what it meant.

I was just concerned that things like me CV and accounts were on the HDD and would hate to think somebody off eBay could retrieve it etc