Safely removing personal data before passing on computer

[judeb]

I'm upgrading my XP computer later this week, & a friend would like the old one to replace her father's old Win '95 model. I'm fine with this but I don't want to leave any sensitive data on the hard disk (I have used on-line banking). I had thought that using a secure multipass shredder would be enough to safeguard personal information, but several people have said that info can still be retrieved after doing this. Reformatting the hard drive & re-installing the operating system seems like a lot of hard work (I do have the reinstallation disk for the OS) & I worry what issues this would throw up. Can anybody advise me on this issue?

[Magpie2]

Hi,
If you want to be 100% secure see http://www.killdisk.com .You would need to reinstall XP afterwards.Having said that I think that it is unlikely that the average user would be able to recover data once the drive has been formatted.

[CCUP]

))Darik's Boot And Nuke(( Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot disk that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.