How do i thoroughly wipe my hard drive?

Go to Start – Programs – BC Wipe 3.0 – BCWipe Task Manager

We then go to Tasks – Create new Task – Wipe free space.

WHY DO WE WIPE FREE SPACE?
Sure, we could delete individual files, but when you know the cops are coming, it’s better to wipe your free space because the free space contains all the webpages you went to, all the e-mails you thought you deleted, etc. ALSO MAKE SURE TO DELETE IRC/AIM/MSN/YAHOO/ICQ CHAT LOGS OR DON’T LOG AT ALL. Believe me, they will come back to haunt you.

First: we must decide what drives we want to get wiped. BCwipe estimates to wipe my C: drive in 59 minutes with the DoD 7 pass wiping scheme — not too bad with a 350Mhz machine with 128mb of ram. The bigger the hard drib=ve is, The longer it takes to due a "Complete DOD Secure Hard Drive Wipe! just get ion the habbit of every couple days hitting the wipe hard drive function. It will speed it up if you need to "DUE A DAM FAST HARD DRIVE WIPE WHEN THEY ARE BUSTING DOWN THE FRONT DOOR!

Second: we must decide when we want to wipe. You could setup a daily wipe at 12:00am when you sleep to wipe all your sensitive stuff out if you’re a paranoid person. For this instance, we are going to wipe once.

Third: wipe options. We must decide what scheme we want to do.

The U.S. DoD 5200.28-STD wiping standard wipes your hard drive 7 times, while the Peter Guttman scheme does it 35 times. Compare 59 minutes for the DoD to 4 hours of Peter Guttman. Security is essential — I’m doing the Peter Guttman scheme.

Keep every box checked unless you know what you are doing. In the Wiping Scheme Editor, the Peter Guttman scheme looks far more superior. In the first 4 passes, random bytes are written to the free space on the hard drive, and in the last 4 passes, this is done also. This is very good for us and very bad for the guys who want to read our hard drive.

Note: the Peter Gutmann scheme would work excellent if you wiped your hard drive that way let’s say weekly, then you DoD wiped your hard drive daily. 4 hours? That’s not too long. You could get it started, then go see a movie, go shopping, etc. You can leave your computer for more than 4 hours, you know.

7 passes on the DoD scheme means that the DoD thinks that 7 passes is enough to destroy sensitive data, but in this world of electronic uncertainty, 35 passes works for me. Also, do not log your wipe. This is something that has the potential of being used against you.

I clicked back on the Schedule tab and clicked the big button that says Start Now! BCWipe wipes your slack files, your free space, and your deleted
directory entries.

NOTE: you might see this screen and believe it won’t take very long. If you look up at the very top, it says Pass 1 (total 35) — don’t forget about it takes a very long time to wipe your hard drive 35 times. 35 times might seem like over-kill, but over-kill will probably save you one day.

Tip: install a 2gb hard drive for all your sensitive stuff. How long would it take to wipe a 2gb hard drive with the fast computers we have today? No time at all.