Are you planning on purchasing a new computer soon? If so, what will you do with your old computer? What will happen to the data on your old hard drive?

Most people have some data that they would rather not share with others - passwords, personal information, classified documents from work, financial records, etc. Perhaps you have saved some of this information on your computer where it is conveniently at your reach, but when the time comes to remove the data from your hard disk, things get a bit more complicated and maintaining your privacy is not as simple as it may have seemed at first.

Your first thought may be that when you 'delete' the file, the data is gone. Not quite. When you delete a file, the operating system does not really remove the file from the disk; it only removes the reference of the file from the file system table. The file remains on the disk until another file is created over it, and even after that, it might be possible to recover data by studying the magnetic fields on the disk platter surface. Before the file is overwritten, anyone can easily retrieve it with a disk maintenance or an undelete utility.

The methods I use are a means of ensuring due diligence in computer recycling or resale, a way of preventing identity theft if you want to sell a computer, and a good way to totally clean a Microsoft Windows or Macintosh installation of viruses and spyware. The techniques used prevent or thoroughly hinder all known techniques of hard disk forensic analysis or data recovery.

I can securely wipe most hard drives including EIDE, SATA and SCSI. If the drive can be accessed, then the data can be securely erased. 24 hour turn around in most cases.

What is peace of mind worth to you?