Clearing Hard Drive

[fbg40]

I have an old PC with a 120Gb HD. I would like to remove this and possibly use it as an external HD. What is the best way of completely removing all data, OS and progs from this HD (if possible), and what would be the best enclosure to buy ? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
FBG40

[kujawski]

a) Reformat the drive, or use a piece of software to overwrite everything on the disk, if sensitive info, (i think Dr Soloman do one).

b) i recently bought a usb disk caddy from maplins, cost 40 pounds and is suitable for and ide type drive, i think they probably do the same for sata type interfaces.

[fbg40]

kujawski
Many thanks for such a prompt reply. Will look into your suggestions.
Thanks again
FBG40

[thegamer]

you could try a program called MBR (master boot record)
this works very well by making the hdd act as a new drive
and removing all data.

try it

thegamer

[boobesque]

depending on your hard drive manufacturer, you can either write 0's to the drive or perform a low level format. they are both exactly the same thing but different companies call it different things for whatever reason. go to the website of your hard drive make, and somewhere you should be able to download a program that will allow you to do this low level format/write 0's. what this does is overwrite all binary data with 0's, thus leaving a totally blank hard drive.

[fbg40]

Many thanks to everybody for such helpful replies. Will try and ascertain which works the best !
FBG40