Top 5 free tools to destroy your hard drive's data

Remove evidence or just remove information before giving away or trashing an old computer. You would be surprised at what can be recovered from your hard drive if the proper steps aren't taken to permanently erase the data. So, here's a few tools to help you destroy your data.

Darik's Boot and Nuke - A self-contained boot floppy (can be a bootable CD) that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction. I just got done using this application on an old laptop.

Eraser - Eraser is a secure data removal tool, which allows you to remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it with carefully selected patterns.

Secure Delete - Secure Delete allows you to specify a directory (and optionally all subdirectories) in which all files should be deleted. When each file is deleted the contents of the file are filled with random data prior to deleting the file.

Wipe [linux] - Wipe is a secure file wiping utility and listed by some as one of the best utilities for securely removing data from a hard drive.

Active KillDisk - A powerful and compact software that allows you to destroy all data on hard and floppy drives completely, excluding any possibility of future recovery of deleted files and folders. It's a hard drive and partition eraser utility.

stay tuned for a tool to get data from an erased hard drive...