Wiping a Hard Drive completely

[lewsky]

I usually wipe hard drive using the format that comes with windows install disk. But the partitions remain and I don't dare wipe them in case something goes wrong so is there some software I can use to 100% wipe my Hard drive for a new install of Windows 8. Want to make sure there are no traces of past data on the hard drive without destroying it. I dont mind there being a chance that some data is recovered I just want it wiped so the hard drive is 100% empty

Thanks in advance!

 

[harryfishrules]

During the Windows installation, you can delete the partitions and allow Windows 8 to create only the ones it needs if this is what you want to achieve.

 

[lewsky]

During the Windows installation, you can delete the partitions and allow Windows 8 to create only the ones it needs if this is what you want to achieve.

But I want to get rid of all the Partitions for windows to create new ones. Formatting the partitions will just leave them empty but still containing partitions

 

[harryfishrules]

During the installation, Windows displays all partitions on the drive. You can delete these and then allow Windows to create the partitions it needs, following this will remove all partitions visible to Windows on the drive.