Small capacity hard drives

**PartTimeScrapper** · 02-29-2012, 04:53 PM

just go to www.diskwipe.org and download the free version of the program. it will do DOD compliant wipes and wont cost you a penny. Now I would also buy this adpater from ebay. http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-USB-2-0-...item2c61c99b9d That way you can just plug it into your USB port and dont have to worry about tearing apart your computer. Also you can download this program if you like for free to test the drive for errors. www.hdtune.com I am thinking of buying the HDtune pro program just so I can error check and whipe all in the same program but I use both free programs as we speak to check and wipe all the drives I sell. Hope that helps.

**WhiteLightning** · 03-01-2012, 10:52 AM

There is also a drive wipe tool in a free program I use for routine maintenance, called CCleaner, it's in the tools options, and you have choices for 1, 3, 7 passes (maybe more), just do as PTS said and hook up a usb ext dock.. Depending on the size of the drive, and how many passes you want to perform, it could take days.. Last one I wiped was only an 80G unit, and it took 13-14 hours for a triple pass..

**PartTimeScrapper** · 03-01-2012, 10:19 PM

Originally Posted by WhiteLightning

There is also a drive wipe tool in a free program I use for routine maintenance, called CCleaner, it's in the tools options, and you have choices for 1, 3, 7 passes (maybe more), just do as PTS said and hook up a usb ext dock.. Depending on the size of the drive, and how many passes you want to perform, it could take days.. Last one I wiped was only an 80G unit, and it took 13-14 hours for a triple pass..

wow 13 hours? your using the wrong program then. Diskwhie only takes about 20 mins to do a triple pass on an 80gb drive.

**WhiteLightning** · 03-02-2012, 02:32 PM

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

wow 13 hours? your using the wrong program then. Diskwhie only takes about 20 mins to do a triple pass on an 80gb drive.

That's good news! I was dreading the possibility of triple passing some 500G drive with that program.. Thanks for the heads up

**parrothead** · 03-02-2012, 06:37 AM

Originally Posted by PartTimeScrapper

just go to www.diskwipe.org and download the free version of the program. it will do DOD compliant wipes and wont cost you a penny. Now I would also buy this adpater from ebay. http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-USB-2-0-...item2c61c99b9d That way you can just plug it into your USB port and dont have to worry about tearing apart your computer. Also you can download this program if you like for free to test the drive for errors. www.hdtune.com I am thinking of buying the HDtune pro program just so I can error check and whipe all in the same program but I use both free programs as we speak to check and wipe all the drives I sell. Hope that helps.

One word of caution on that tester from e-bay. I bought the same one. The cables are great. I was testing my first hard drive with it. and the hard drive worked great. I was looking through all of the files and getting ready to format it when the power supply started making noise and gettting louder and ended with a loud pop! The power supply had fried. I cracked open the case and used one of the extra power cables to start over again, and guess what? The 500gb hard drive I decided to look at first was now fried. Cheap Chinese transformer blew up my $40 or so hard drive e-bay sale.

I still use the USB cable and it's buddies to test with, but reccommend going straight to the inside of the computer to get your power. I have a computer on the bench with the side off for this purpose all the time now.