If you ever decide to sell or donate your old computer, you need to make sure you don't accidently donate stored passwords, credit card numbers, old tax returns, intimate photographs, financial records, social security numbers, mother's maiden name, etc. along with it. A personal computer contains a lot of sensitive information that can potentially be retrieved even if you deleted the files or reformatted the hard drive.
Deleting files removes the information from the directory the hard drive needs to find the data, but not the data itself. The same thing is true about reformatting your drive. A reformat removes the directions to the information from the directory but not the data itself. Deleted data is not removed from the drive until it is overwritten with new data.Deleted information can be restored using data-recovery software. Data-recovery software looks for data on your hard drive that isn't listed in the directory and restores it. This is how law enforcement is able to recover data to solve crimes. It is also how criminals restore information in order to commit crimes.
Sometimes, depending on the data stored on the hard drive, reformatting the drive is enough of a precaution. It will keep the average person from retrieving your old information. If you want to go a step further, there are programs that will overwrite your entire hard drive with random numbers.
Several free programs that do this:
Darik's Boot and Nuke: /projects/dban/Active@ Kill Disk: /
If you really want to be sure that no data can ever be retrieved from your old hard drive, you can use power tools on it. You can drill holes through the drive. You can open up the drive and use sanders or grinders on the platters. Of course, this method is only to be used if you aren't planning to donate or sell your computer.
If you don't feel certain you can remove all the data, you can take your PC to a computer repair shop to have it done.
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