The Best Free Hard Drive Eraser

Concern about laptop security? Download one of the many free hard drive eraser tools available on the net. In fact it's a wise idea to add two different types of eraser or cleaner to your portfolio of security tools. The first having the ability to execute a total wipe of your entire system. The second a housekeeping aid to thoroughly wipe internet trails and erase miscellaneous rubbish that slows your PC down.

If you're upgrading a laptop or PC and decide to: give, hand down or sell your old one, it's essential to completely erase the whole system before handing it over. File deletion and formatting will not erase data completely. It's usually quite easy to reverse file deletions and even disk formatting with data recovery software. You don't need to be a forensic scientist and wear a white coat to reverse a file delete or even bring data back from a recycle bin. To counter these risks it's necessary to implement data recovery protection measures.

Because it's impossible to totally wipe the contents of a hard drive while the operating system is running, it's necessary to create a bootable floppy disk or CD for the eraser. If the eraser doesn't require the use of a boot disk, it will not totally wipe all data from the PC. The next step is to specify how many times the data on the target disk is to be over written. In cases where extremely sensitive data needs to be erased drives should be overwritten 20-30 times.

One of the most comprehensive solutions is Darik's Boot a Nuke, which is a free hard drive cleaner.

Tools such as these are exceptionally dangerous in the hands of anyone wishing to erase vital information. Once a boot disk is created label and secure it. As a precaution your laptop's BIOS should have a password on it and by default should not permit booting from a floppy or CD.

The other category of free hard drive eraser is one to be used as part of your periodic housekeeping. A tool that will clean out temporary files, internet trails and other unneeded traces of your personal information, including passwords, credit card numbers, and previously deleted data, e-mail and more.