Exchanging old HDDs for new.. How to wipe old, and test new

[hunted22]

Hello all..

I'm selling my old 1TB HDDs and buying new 3TBs, and I'd like to:

1. totally clean my old drives so that new owners can't restore my data.. I remember a few years when I exchanged my 320s and 500s for the 1TBs, I read that smaller files like pictures, bank statement, and other small personal files can be restored even if you used wiping software.. are there any software now that can TOTALLY delete smaller files?

2. test my new 3TBs to make sure no bad sectors and such.. what is the sure way to test new (in other word, blank) HDDs to make sure that they have no errors and working properly?

thank you.

 

[tivatar]

Hiren's boot CD has a good number of data cleaners/shredders that can be used. One pass should be sufficient for amateurs with an un-delete program. Use two or three if you're more paranoid.

Hiren's is also full of HDD scanners, but a chkdsk should work just fine too.

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

Download the .iso and burn to a CD using Windows (built-in to Vista and 7). Run the autorun and a menu should pop up. You want Data Shredder under 'cleaners' and HDD Scan under 'hard disk/storage'