Randy - I downloaded that software and put it on a CD but I can't get the dang computer to boot off the CD drive now.

I assume you set the bios to boot from the optic drive as first priority?

In the Army, we degauzed our HDs when we were done with them, then took them to the parking lot and beat the **** out of them with a sledge hammer.

Randy - Yes, I've finally got the bios to recognize the two hard drives and the CD reader, but it still won't boot off the CD and now the memory is showing as being bad again so, I'm calling it for the day and tomorrow will strip out all the drives and move it on down the road.

What...like with a cloth?

Is the CD you are trying to use a factory made drive or one that was made with a utility that creates a "boot" CD? You can not just copy files to either a CD or DVD or hard drive and make it a boot device. The boot creation software still needs to put software (MBR stuff) into what is called the "zero track" to allow things to get started.

John - Appreciate the help. To answer your question, I just copied the file I downloaded to the CD. I doubt I made it correctly as a boot CD.
With the memory going bad again I'm just calling it on the computer. It's given us some good service, it's time to let it go. Can't justify spending any money on it when I've got a working desktop and two old laptops just sitting around. I'll set up one of the laptops as a garage compute using the monitor and keyboard from this old one.

fire, kill it with fire

Wiping a drive..........
 

Call Hillary, she should be able to help you with this problem! Seriously, in addition to formatting the drive, you should repartition it and then load a new operating system. That should pretty effectively clean things up!

Drill is what I do to all mine.

Likewise. Deadblow hammer, drill, and/or a big magnet.

About 6 little screws (torx or Phillips) hold the cover on. Remove those and you have access to the platters and a nice rare earth magnet. Then use your BFH on the platter and recycle the rest.

When I worked for the Ministry of Death (Ministry of Defense) I had about 200 computers that were being got rid of, and if any confidential information left with them - whoooo, I would have been in trouble. I used the DeWalt app - that's electric drill to you non-believers, and nothing could be recovered from the disks. None of that zero disk blah blah type app for me.

Why is it important to wipe a drive:

In the late 80's, the city I worked for had a auction. I bought a few computers for $60 each. One from the Building dept had many memos. Memos about a certain big developer not passing any inspections until Revenue goals had been achieved. Disaster if this had become public.