IDE drives are typically formatted "at the factory" so you may actually make the drives unusable if you use a magnet.
Michael R. Schmidt -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of amilabs Sent: Monday, July 12, 2004 11:49 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Full-Disclosure] Erasing a hard disk easily I have a bunch of old computers I would like to donate. Old laptops with win 95/98 on them and some old tower desktops all circa 1995-2k. I would like to know if I can just use a magnet to completely wipe out the data for obvious security reasons. I have heard about the disk erasers like active kill and Perl utilities for this but with the ability of data ghosting etc. is this enough? Can I use a big magnet like a speaker magnet or something like a degasser to just wipe out the data without having to boot these old boxes and go through all the extra work. Thanks _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
