Ask HN: Selling laptop, how to wipe information?

You want this: <a href="http://www.dban.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.dban.org/</a><p>By the way, this isn't really an appropriate question for HN.

I normally use a Linux boot disk to boot in live CD and then I format my disk and use an utility that writes random bits on the drive. I can't remember how this utility is called but I think a quick google search will give a lot of results.

I've always been partial to DBAN:<p><a href="http://www.dban.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.dban.org/</a>