[masraum]

No. If you imagine a harddrive as being like a book with a table of contents. THe format utility basically leaves all of the text of the book alone and only screws with the table of contents.

If you really want to get rid of the data, you have to actually write new data over the old data. There are utilities that will do that.

Or you could beat the hard drive to a pulp with a hammer. That's always fun. If you destroy the plates, it would probably be adequate.