is info safe after disc format?

I have an old laptop with a broken screen that i am looking to get rid of. if i format the hard drives, does it completely and permanently remove all of the info on there? If someone picked it up would they be able to recover the info? there's some financials etc so i don't want to take any risks. Any help greatly appreciated.

 

if the information is critical, i would remove the hard drive and burn it (in a safe place) ... there are government wipe programs that format several times, but who knows what can be recovered today ... you can find links to format programs that do a government wipe on this site ... look undewr drive cleaners and try "Active KillDisk" ... says it's up to gov specs ...

 

No and yes!! No, the info is NOT safe after a re-format...and yes, if someone found it they could very well recover data from it. Another method, since the discs store data magnetically, use a very strong magnet over the surface of the disc. But, like davequinn2 said, who knows what methods are used now-a-days to retrieve data from discs. That magnet trick may not even work anymore if someone is extremely intent on getting your info.

 

glad I checked! Thanks for that guys. To think I was just going to take it to the dump!!

 

Hi Ajs,

A "Government wipe" mentioned by Dave Q. is not a format but is a "Zero Write". Writing Zeros over the entire drive many times makes it very difficult for anyone to get any info off of it. It is not nearly as easy as TV shows make it seem.

Luck, Jim