Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob
DBAN
Download the bootable ISO and burn it to a disk. You can them wipe the drive once with all zeros (fastest) and there's nothing left. Additional passes with random numbers and such are largely a waste of time.
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My understanding is that with the incredible data densities of modern drives using GMR and perpendicular recording techniques, only a single pass is needed to wipe drives, as there isn't enough residual magnetic charge between the individual bits to do any meaningful data recovery.
A single pass is certainly sufficient regardless for consumers - no identity thief is going to be motivated enough to spend thousands of dollars to retrieve your hard drive contents - there are easier marks out there.