Best software for wiping my laptop bone clean?
 

I'm having a lot of issues with my laptop as of late. I've removed anything I could find in there that shouldn't be there and even did a system restore to back when it was running smooth. Yet it's still bogging down.

I want to wipe her and start new. I've never had to do it before so I don't know what is the best way to do it.

Thanks!

Ive used Eraser before...worked well!

http://www.download.com/Eraser/3000-...dlPid=10783721

PS: Happy B-day!

Back up all your important files to a DVD-R, and wipe the fucker and reinstall windows.

Reinstall Windows.

format c:

shit does wonders!

format that6 shit

what everyone else said in this thread!

Paragon disk wiper will do the job. It has many different wiping settings and uses military grade algorithms to irreversibly destroy every last bit of data on your hard drive.

Then do the regular full format and re-install OS.

link: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/dw-personal/

lol format only makes the disk rewrittable - to be able to write info over everything else.. the data is still there.. you need to write over and over and over.. like taking a marker and rubbing over some phone number you dont want your gf to see...

id rather just destroy my harddrive and buy a new one when im selling a computer.

Depends if you are trying to hide something from even a remote possibility of being recovered by professional utilities or you just want to fix your slow system performance. In the first case, you need some of those software tools to wipe the data, then format and reinstall windows. In the latter case, you just back up your data, format the drive and reinstall windows and that should do the trick.

The free and easy way - boot with a linux disc and as root enter "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/xxx" where xxx indicates recognized drive type and letter. If it is a newer box with no funky hardware config and a newer distro you'll probably be entering
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda this will write zeros to every cluster on the drive wiping everything out in the process. The bigger the drive, the longer this will take.

Hey man you can use Eraser, its good!

Reinstall windows...boot from the CD/DVD and format it from there

del *.*





jk.

Ok, backup all the important data to DVD and format all the drives, and reinstall windows. Should feel like new.

If you have a Seagate or Maxtor use MaxBlast for a low-level format.

pdwipe..

debug - format - install windwos (or whatever os it is)

what brand computer? most brands now ship out with recovery cds that u jsut pop in and they do all the work for you, or have recovery partitions that do the same.

Hey all, I should have been more clear.

I'm not trying to hide anything, but am trying to fix performance.

To make matters worse, I am on the other side of the world from the install disks. I was hoping that there was something I could do without having to reinstall the op system, but still wipe everything to get ride of whatever is bogging me down.

Am I fucked?

CCleaner ;)

Install LINUX!
That will solve your problems...

A hammer!

any other software that will completely remove everything on the disk making it impossible to recover anything?
bump

When was the last time you defragged your drive? Try the 30-day free trial of Diskeeper.

I had some performance issues, tried some utils such as System Mechanic, etc but it didn't help. I then realized that I hadn't defragged my hard drive in 4 years.

I defrag about once a week. I'm sure I have some sort of malware / virus that is not being picked up by my software. There is really no other reason for it. I defrag and keep the registry clean and overall take good care of my baby.

Though, do you know if there is one way that is better than the other to defrag? I see the software you list, but I just use the defrag option that comes with XP in the tools. Perhaps it's not doing a good job?