Wiping donated computers for recycling question

[Intense Red]

 > Does the standard installation process where one selects
 > 'Use entire disk' do a good enough job of wiping the hard drive of any
 > prior data?

   IMHO, yes. A lot will depend on the particular file system you use and 
how paranoid you are, but here's a generic answer.

   GNU fdisk will reset the master boot record. At that time, the partition 
data on the disk is effectively lost, and similarly the data. But it would 
still be possible for an expert to recover the data.

   When a mkfs (in Windows-speak, a "format" the disk) is done, it is 
a "quick format". mkfs writes out itables or "indexes" so that files 
created can be indexed. Similar to the above, this means the data on the 
disk is effectively lost, but again, a file system/hard disk expert could 
recover it.

   GNU's mkfs also has a "check block" option, typically used to check for 
faulty hard drive hardware. If you use the check block option, it will take 
a *long* time on a modern hard drive. In this process, each sector of the 
hard drive is written to and then read from -- and the results compared. 
This literally checks the entire hard drive and is the equivalent of 
a "Norton wipe" -- any data is permanently erased at that point since each 
sector got overwritten.

   Unless you've got some super-secret military-grade data on the drive and 
are paranoid beyond belief, just do the "use the entire disk option".

-- 
"The courts have ruled that the police can search your data without a 
warrant, as long as others hold that data. If the police want to read the 
e-mail on your computer, they need a warrant; but they don't need one to 
read it from the backup tapes at your ISP." -- Security expert Bruce 
Schneier.