Free HD Wiping tools

[stoofa]

I'm after recommendations of free tools.
For the first application I've got some old HD's that I want to dispose of. Are there any free software tools that will allow me to do a secure format - so that in the majority of cases data could not be retrieved from the disk?

The second application is we have a machine where we would like to "securely delete" files we've already deleted.
I can find tools that will "shred" files, but these are designed for files that are live and you no longer want them.
We'd like to find a tool that would search a HD for deleted files and then give us the option of secure deleting them.
Anything exist?

Cheers all.

 

[wazza300]

dban should delete things permanently

if windows 7 or 8 a long format should be sufficient

with any hdd/ssd the best way to make it impossible to recover data is to format and fill up the drive again with unimportant data a few times

 

[Confused Stu]

This link has the instructions for the built in Windows commands to do what you're after: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/easy-way-securely-erase-drive.htm

Remember that, whatever took you use, overwriting data to every part of a HDD will take a lot of time (HDDs are relatively huge these days). For the HDDs you're looking to dispose of, it will be a lot quicker to dismantle and physically bend/break/destroy the platters themselves. Technically, the data is recoverable but what are the chances the CIA will want to spend months rebuilding your data? We use a crusher at work to dispose of old HDDs, except one person who prefers a large drill through the platter area of the drive a few times.