NUKE!

In trying to liquidate some of my hardware, I was faced with the challenge of how to wipe my hard drives I want to get rid of.  You see, even formatting the drive will leave information on it.  Granted it takes more than just slapping it in a computer to read the files, but people bent on getting your personal information are resourceful to say the least.  I've heard of people trolling garage sales, second hand stores, and even dumpster diving for computers to pull personal information off of.

It was along these lines that I came across another useful Linux distribution:

Darik's Boot and Nuke

Download the iso from sourceforge (I had to use version 1.07 for it to work) and boot from the burned CD.  It will detect any hard drive you have installed on the computer and wipe it with DOD level wiping:  meaning it will be near impossible to recover any data from it once it's wiped.

So be sure to take care of your identity and wipe your computers before disposing of them.  In the same respect, make sure there's nothing on it that you want to keep.  You won't get it back if you use this program.