Wiping a hard drive before donating laptop

I have an old laptop that I want to donate. Normally when I wipe a drive, I first reinstall the OS with a complete format, then I use a free utility called Eraser to secure wipe the ununsed space.
I would prefer to find a much easier way to do this. Ideally a free utility that burns to a CD and can run on bootup to just completely and securely wipe the drive.
curious to know what others do.

 

http://www.dban.org/

 

When I donate computers, I simple install Linux onto them. I install red hat since it is basic and it works. Then I just hand the systems over to the community shelter. By law you cannot give a system away with windows on it, unless you provide discs. Since I do not have infinite Windows XP codes/discs, I install Linux

If the place you are donating the computer to is half way decent, the computer goes to a needy home where it will be appreciated. I highly doubt they are in it to get someone's identity. It is an awfully hard task for someone to perform, let alone hear of, if they never had a computer before

K-TRON

 

I just erase my partitions and format the whole drive once. If somebody really wants to steal info, they will have much better ways of doing so instead of relying on used personal HDs.

Companies should do a DOD wipe IMO. Funny thing is on Craigslist, I used to pick up tons of free used computer towers with HDs inside from companies in Manhattan and they would still have sensitive info on it. From Law offices to department stores. They are so lucky I'm not a criminal. One company even still had their valid company's cashiers check printing software on it. Another had Names, SS, and other personal info of thousands of clients. SMH. I had to wipe most of the drives myself before I sold them.

 

Im assuming you mean formatting the drive before Windows starts.
I don't see how you can format the same drive that Windows runs from, in windows. How do you get the command prompt before Windows starts?

 

Live CD .

 

You saw this where?

 

Killdisk, download, burn to cd, boot from cd and wipe drives with one-pass zero's.
Easy as can be.

 

My guess is it's in the EULA. Not being illegal would be like MS letting manufacturers pre-install Windows for free.

 

Yeah. What I actually did was not really donate, but sold it to Eztradein.com. They require you to delete the OS or they charge you a $15 fee to do it for you.

I used Ubuntu Live CD and then formatted a few times (NTFS, Ext3, and another), and then just deleted the partition itself.

Sent it out and got $124

 

Second that

 

Thnks for the link. I am trying it now.