What is the recommended method to clear a hard drive before disposal?

Clearing a hard drive before disposal is crucial to ensuring that sensitive data cannot be recovered. The recommended method is to zero all block sectors. This process involves writing zeros to every block on the hard drive, effectively overwriting the existing data. By doing this, you make it exceedingly difficult for any data recovery methods to retrieve the original information, as all the data is replaced with a uniform pattern of zeros.

This method is particularly effective because it provides a thorough cleansing of the disk, including all partitions and file systems. Unlike simply deleting files or partitions, which can leave traces that may be recoverable, zeroing all block sectors ensures every area of the drive is overwritten.

Other options, such as deleting the FAT (File Allocation Table) or deleting the partition, only remove references to where data is stored, which does not erase the actual data itself. As a result, this can still leave the data recoverable with the right tools. Similarly, zeroing just the NTFS journal does not affect the actual contents of the files stored, and therefore, it would not be sufficient for securely disposing of a hard drive.