Is My Hard Drive Secure?

Hello,
I will be replacing my laptop soon and would it tells me that formating will erase everything on the drive. How can I believe this when there are two format options.
The quick format which takes about 5 minutes or perform a long format which takes about a couple of hours.
Which should I use?

The quick format only sets some bits in the indexes that the disk has been formatted, but nothing will really be erased on the disk.
Someone who knows the ways could easily retrieve (almost) all your data.

For this purpose you need (at least) a long format, but an erase with a special program would be better.

Edit: it seems Windows has built-in facilities too, see for instance here:

Edit 2:
If you intend to sell the laptop, you could do a clean install of Windows 11.
See:

If you just want to throw away the device, I advice you to take out the HDD and destruct it mechanically. That's what I always did when a PC was not good anymore for someone else.

you want to find something to do a secure erase. I've used DBAN in the past.

Thanks, I'll do some searching on a program to securely erase all data.

@rejlocal22

There are a number of programs, paid and free, which will securely erase the contents of a hard drive. If the drive contains the OS, then you will have to find a utility that is capable of creating a bootable USB so that you can successfully overwrite the internal boot drive with your chosen app.

Quick format is totally ineffective. It does not wipe the drive, as @Kees has stated.

You could also consider a portable version of Linux to accomplish your goal if you are ambitious.

Like others here, I don't sell or give away my old computers, so I find a sledgehammer a very effective tool for wiping the disks!

Good luck, and have a great day.

Regards,
Phil

I just realized my laptop has a solid state drive. Would it not be easier to remove the bottom cover and then remove the drive. I watch a video to see how its done. Then all I need to do is to destroy the drive before tossing the laptop out.

That's the best way to make the drive unusable for reading by someone else.

Not so long ago I destructed a SSD drive (with much too low capacity) by cutting the printed circuit board into pieces with a big pair of scissors meant to cut thin plates. But a sledge hammer will do as well.

I have seen reports on TV, where some people that are working in the recycling industry in another continent (where most of the recycling is done) take out those HDD's and SSD's and read the contents, so that they can send emails or phonecalls in name of family members. All that thay have to know about them is in files on the disk... Then they do as if they are family or friends in emergency and send requests for money to send...