I decided to throw out the computer (but kept the hard drive and my 64MB of RAM) and donated the monitor to a local organization. I used both RCMP and DoD methods of wiping out the hard drive and right now it is sitting here underneath my new wireless adapter.

Wow, that means that you did have very secret data if you had to go to RCMP/DoD and probably NSA methods to wipe the system.

Anyways, 64MB of RAM??? That system must have been really old if it only had 64MB of RAM.

xboxrulz

Hey I'm still holding on to my old ram - SIMM(s). They are good for the times when you come across an old laser printer. You can upgrade the memory. Just hang on to them, I'm sure someone out there will need them.

Printers use SIMMs? Never knew that. What type?

xboxrulz

Like the old LaserJet Printers... HP i believe. I remember them from back in my high school days. Also some Apple Laserwriters (the laser printers) as support adding SIMM(s). If you've ever asked someone who managed a computer lab with network laser printers or someone who ran a print shop back in the day, they'll tell you the same.

You might have to update the firmware on the NIC enabled printers for the printer to recognize the new amount of ram. Then upload the fonts you most commonly use.

This post has been edited by levimage: Jul 16 2008, 10:09 PM

(on topic of OP)
When I wipe hard drives, I use a live linux cd/floppy (a linux floppie should work as most of them will have dd and the device tree) and do dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/<hard drive> then collow it with dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/<hard drive>, I do that a couple of times esp if I am setting up a encrypted partition, that way if they try to look at the drive down some layers all they see is garbage or null bytes.

I'm sorry but that is much too confusing. Perhaps you could explain that more? I'm not trying to encrypt a partition here, and is the method you mentioned really secure?

Yes it is secure as what happenes is this

First run 000000000000
2nd run 4gv3h904hgw4
4th run 000000000000
3rd run 32r98hg43g[34


and so forth, the reason i brought up encryption is that is one of the main causes people zero out their hard drive.

but beware this method takes a while to run then just running it once, which the NSA has said 32 times is best as most NON government software can't read that far down and they actually have to take the drive to the labs and take them apart to read that far .

but the commands again (32times in 1 shot if i can recall my bash scripting)
NOTE: DO NOT RUN THIS IT WILL WIPE OUT YOUR HARD DRIVE BEYOND THE POINT OF RECOVERY


EDIT:
save as blah.sh and and chmod +x it so you can run it, and run it as root and goto sleep and when you wake up it will be cleared.
(i had a guy double check the script for me) it will erase your hard drive 32 times and clear out the MDR and partations of any garbage the last urandom did


This post has been edited by Gr33nN1nj4: Aug 20 2008, 08:44 PM