Hi Alistair, DBAN is a self-contained boot disk that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers and prevents or thoroughly hinders all known techniques of hard disk forensic analysis. It will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction. try http://dban.sourceforge.net/ Peter Logue From beautiful Helensburgh on the firth of Clyde. Skype Contact: clydeview2008 ----- Original Message ----- From: Alistair To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 1:46 PM Subject: [access-uk] effective formatting of hard drive Hi folks, Going to purchase a new pc tower next week but I thought I could recycle this one to a friend, however I would prefer it if I could be sure of a effective format before I pass it on. I know that there are some excellent undelete and recovery progs out there so would be grateful if anyone could suggest a programme which might do a good job of permanently deleting my data? Any help would be great! Best wishes Alistair allykelly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx feel free to add me to your messenger allykelly@xxxxxxx