Zero Filling a Hard Disk

Zero filling a hard drive is a simple concept in which a program places a zero into every single part of the hard drives memory space. The reason this is done is for security. By zero filling your hard drive, all files will be completely erased and unrecoverable. This is very helpful if you are looking to give away, dispose of, or donate your old computer or hard drive.

One thing to keep in mind is that a zero fill utility will take hours to run. The time it takes to run will depend on the speed and size of your hard disk.

Another thing to keep in mind is that a format or quick format will NOT delete all vital files and information on your computer. There are software packages that are made to recover files from a recently formatted hard disk. To completely erase all information, you will need to zero fill the hard drive.

Zero Fill Utilities

There are a few good utilities that will zero fill a hard drive for you. Unfortunately, there is no built-in Windows utility to do this. However, there are a few good third party utilities. The two we recommend are kill disk and dban and the links to these are below.

http://killdisk.com/

http://www.dban.org/

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-By Dominic

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