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makers market it as "an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction."

As with all such products, be VERY careful how you use it, and read the instructions thoroughly.

Most important: Be sure and back up any files you want to keep.

Here are two other free disk-wiping products experts have recommended:

Active@KillDisk: http://www.killdisk.com/downlo adfree.htm

Eraser: http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/dow nload.php

Warning: Using such products may be harmful to your hard drive. If you wipe them repeatedly you may see a degradation in performance.

COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS

If open source products don't do it for you, there's always the option of laying out cash and buying a product backed by a company. Here are two:

WipeDrive by White Canyon Software for US$39.95: http://www.wipedrive.com
Active @KillDisk ERASER for US$29.95: http://www.active-eraser.com/

B oth comply with U.S. Department of Defense standards for cleaning and sanitizing hard drives.

DESTROY IT

This may have put you off donating your old hard drive, and if so, I can understand that. But don't let it.

There are many people and organizations (like schools in poor neighborhoods) that desperately need used computers and would put them to good use.

However, if you're in a hurry, don't have time to do any disk-wiping (these products can take hours to do the job properly, by the way) there is an easy way to render your hard drive virtually useless: bash it to bits.

Wear protective eyewear and gloves, get the biggest hammer you can find and beat on it.

If you have a sturdy power drill, then drill several holes into it too, making sure you go all the way through.

Theoretically, your data can still be retrieved, but you would need some extremely sophisticated software and hardware, and a large budget to do so, experts say.

(Sources: CNET, PCWorld, USA Today, eHow.com, Ask-Leo.com)

Learn more about this author, Les Jacobs.
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