Reformatting Hard Drives

When a computer reaches the end of its life at Stanford it generally goes to Surplus Property Sales for resale. Because the hard disk may have licensed software as well as Stanford proprietary data on it, it must first be cleaned. Simply deleting the software or data files is NOT sufficient since any data recovery program worth its salt can easily recover deleted files. Instead, you should clean the hard disk by overwriting the deleted files with special binary data to make the original data unrecoverable. Several tools are available to accomplish this task; contact your computer support person, or put in a HelpSU ticket for assistance.

Here are some University resources to help you in this process. Please note that some of these references involve reformatting after a system crash or virus detection, and are not specifically written for reformatting for sale:

Disk and Data Sanitization Policy and Guidelines

Stanford University Residential Computing

Disposing of DoD Computers

• The Depatment of Defense (DoD) issued a memorandum on May 29, 2001 regarding disposition of unclassified DoD computer hard drives. This memorandum is still in effect. Please ensure you are following the guidance set forth in the memorandum.