What are some of the best, or most secure ways of wiping a hard drive? Before getting rid of that old computer.

this could be a fun way...

http://edrsolutions.com/

There are programs like Maxblast for Maxtors drive or Seagate Tools that will boot from the cd and erase all the data on your HD filling it with 0's and unless you are a professional it is impossible to retrieve any old data from them.

Id just take the drive apart and smash the crap out of the hard drive.. Also you might want to note, that memory, Ram, stores data in its banks, to remove it, make sure you pull the sticks out of the board, also remove the battery from the board to clear the bios.


If you want to wipe the drive, the legit way, to meet compliance you need to do a multi-pass drive clear via software or a process called degaussing..
Honestly the easiest safest way is to just crush the drive with a mallet or hammer..

NOTE: You cannot just through away a computer as the boards contain Lead.

Product: software, it will take a few hours if not days to run,
http://www.dban.org/

Degausser
http://www.garner-products.com/harddrive.htm