Erasing empty space BEFORE or AFTER format?

[Teknikelly]

Hi guys!

I'm going to format and give away my PC soon and was advised by a friend that I should run Eraser on it first.

My question is; assuming that all the content that is on my PC right (and isn't "deleted") is content that I don't really care about fully erasing (i.e; software, family pics, etc, no bank info or anything) and that I want to run Eraser to permanently "erase" all my "deleted" content, I thought that I logically should do it BEFORE I format my computer right? It'll be faster since at the moment there is only about 100GB of "deleted" data that needs to be permanently erased. If I format it, then my whole HDD (650GB) will need to be "erased" and that will take considerably longer.

Or are my assumptions wrong?

Thanks!

 

[Joel]

Yup, if the current data on the disk is not important to you, you can do an unused space erase before formatting.

However, if you're giving it away, there's usually information you can't account for and you'd want those erase. For that reason, I'd recommend formatting then erasing. However, that would bring a new problem of needing to reinstall the operating system. So I guess my advise is to know your options and take your most informed one