How do I write zeros without an application?

[Supasized]

Hello,
I want to completely erase my primary, and only hard drive. Is there a way to do it form BIOS or a boot cd? I know windows install disks can do a format process, but does that erase everything too?

 

[rvilkman]

The one from windows does erase everything, but if you mean in a way that it will be very difficult to recover from the disc then there are separate programs that allow you to do that. They basically write multiple times on the disc.

However for a more normal using doing a regular format ( and not a quick format ) from the windows installation, should be quite sufficient.

 

[swoz]

http://www.dban.org/

Boot and Nuke the drive. Overwrites the data with a random sequence (and multiple times) to ensure the data you have on the disk is not recoverable.

 

[Supasized]

Best answer selected by supasized.