Erasing an External Hard Drive

[agrundst]

I am new to this software and my tech IQ is modest. I want to wipe a WD 160 GB external hard drive completely clean, but from reading some posts, I am worried about the side effects (i.e. I don't want to erase anything on the local C drive on the machine that I'm using to run the application). I haven't downloaded the software yet - just a little leery that it's gonna wipe my actual computer. Are there any precautions I should take when I run it? I am running Windows XP Professional SP3 on this machine.

Thanks.

 

[DavidHB]

Using the link in my signature, go to the FAQ, and read the topic 'Getting to know Eraser 6', which has a section on this issue. Erasing free space does not affect non erased files and targets only one file at a time.

The only precaution you need to take when using Eraser is stated in the FAQ topic: think twice (or three times) before erasing once. You need to be sure that you are erasing the right thing, as you cannot undo any damage (except from a backup). But Eraser only erases what you tell it to erase; it does not go off and do hidden things on its own.

David