Can anyone recommend a good program to wipe my external HD?

First off, that’s hot. You should forward to me first for historical archiving purposes:

Second, you can search for “darik’s boot and nuke”. It’s a multipass eraser, instead of “deleting files” where they could be recovered, it writes all new “zero and one” data across the entire drive, in a sequence the computer registers as blank. It would take many PCs many years to break that code, but he’s free to start writing new data to it immediately.

Another way (that isn’t as in depth but is better than recycle bin) is CCleaner. Free software, perminently erases whatever data once it’s in the recycle bin. Install it with Use CCleaner in the context (right click) menu and use that instead of “empty recycle bin” to take care of junk data on the fly.

Historical archive purposes. You can .rar them and upload to megaupload.com and send me the link. Good memories must be preserved!

All you need to do is reformat and/or rewrite over the drive. There’s probably a utility on his or your computer that will let you do this. On a Mac, it’s called “Disk Utility.” Beyond just deleting your files (which doesn’t actually delete the file so much as make that space available for a new file), you want to either a) reformat (so that the drive’s “directory” doesn’t show any old content) or b) overwrite the drive, which means telling the computer to write a 1 or a 0 on every individual space on the hard drive. The more times you rewrite the drive (1 time, 7 times, 35 times) the more securely the old information is made inaccessible.

on windows right click on the drive and click format. Do this about 10 – 20 times and you’ll be completly cleaned

I’d like to resubmit the following info if all else fails:

“Historical archive purposes. You can .rar them and upload to megaupload.com and send me the link. Good memories must be preserved!”

I think that’s the prime bulletpoint of this thread.

@joeysefika: Only provided you don’t choose “quick format”. That simply rewrites the headers.

Oh, I’m afraid that content won’t be shared with anyone. But thanks for the info, all!

BETRAYAL

Is this an internal or external HD? If it is external I suggest using eraser. If it is an internal drive use the DBan suggested by lovelocke.

External.

I’ll third the suggestion for dban