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I'm planning to donate a laptop to a school, for kids to use from home during the pandemic.

It's my previous work/development laptop, so I want to erase the drives as securely as possible (within reason, I'm not exactly expecting a state sponsored attack.). But keep them in good working order.

There's both an HDD and SSD drive, from what I gather these require different approaches.

What would be the recommended steps to wipe the drives?

Going for a security level to counter "A knowledgeable person with some freely available software".
And if it's not offtopic for this site, are there any recommendations for free or low cost tools?

user83023
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    If the drives don't hold sensitive data that can bring harm if disclosed, you just need to format them using any tools avaliable on the Internet. – elsadek Nov 16 '20 at 17:17
  • Most drives these days recognise a "secure erase" SATA command, which can be issued with standard tools such as hdparm. Just make sure the disk you're erasing is the one you think it is! – Toby Speight Nov 16 '20 at 17:44
  • That said, I wouldn't trust the implementation to withstand a serious attack - see [this question](https://security.stackexchange.com/q/41676/89875) and its answers. – Toby Speight Nov 16 '20 at 17:46
  • @elsadek I did a normal format, but the drive contained git repositories of my previous job, ssh certificates, all kinds proprietary data of the company. plenty of things that would be bad if disclosed – user83023 Nov 16 '20 at 18:38
  • @user83023 those are sensitive data, better to encrypt all sensitive files and then [a single overwrite of all 0 is fine, although a couple of overwrites of pseudo-random data is probably better](https://security.stackexchange.com/a/5824/21144). – elsadek Nov 16 '20 at 20:18
  • +1 for donating to charity! I think this would get better answers if divided into two separate questions: one for HDD, and another for SSD. They are very different technologies, and as you mention, they require different approaches. – RockPaperLz- Mask it or Casket Nov 17 '20 at 00:55

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[SSD]: It's easier to perform a secure erase, using the companies software. Seagate SeaTools, Western Digital SSD Dashboard, Samsung Magician, Intel SSD Toolbox are the most common. In all of these softwares (free) there is a "secure erase" option. SOS: Formatting does not erase your data not even in the SSD.

[HDD]: Also for the HDD i'd suggest you to use a third-party software. Not even for a professional is worth to do it by himself. DBAN is the most known tool, completely free. Check that tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHB2gDFBvCU

Adamantios Marios Berzovitis
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