Format is effective if it works correctly and wipes the entire disk. format /q obviously would just wipe out the fat table and leave the data. "DBAN" (Darik's boot and nuke" is a simple but good app and it writes random data to the drive X times to wipe it out. That technique some folks like because they think that now even an electron microscope that probes below the current magnetic data set won't be able to read the previously saved data and will now see the remnants of the random data used by dban. It's only partially correct as you'd probably have to wipe it 16 times which would take forever. It's free for personal use and is scriptable which makes it a nice popular product as well as a commercial version you can buy for companies and/or agencies which are required to use supported software.
Our corporate policy now mandates that all drives be removed from systems and get shredded. Pretty lame but it's because of all these audit requirements we have to go through mostly to stay in compliance with our customers. I agree the hardest part to find is usually the drive carrier which ironically they won't shred, for whatever reason our shredding company fears steel.
Our corporate policy now mandates that all drives be removed from systems and get shredded. Pretty lame but it's because of all these audit requirements we have to go through mostly to stay in compliance with our customers. I agree the hardest part to find is usually the drive carrier which ironically they won't shred, for whatever reason our shredding company fears steel.