ISO freeware for partial wiping of harddrives

Originally Posted by ilyaz

Can anybody suggest freeware that can be used to DoD wipe only the unused part of a harddrive? That is, I have a working computer that I want to sell and I want to make sure that no data can be recovered from unused part of the drive (where there used to be files that were simply deleted). I don't want to wipe the whole drive and reinstall OS. Thx

I think you're asking a bit much Ilyaz, just my guess. There's something I've used, but I've never seen mentioned on here, if you have a partition magic or G-Parted type partitioning software available, and you can manually delete all unwanted information from the drive, then compress and defragment the drive several times with both Windows and Iobit Smart-Defrag programs to get it as condensed as possible. Then use the partitioning program to make a partition in the free space using a ext2, 3, or 4 type file system, then change it back to NTFS, rendering any info on the free space unrecoverable.
I have been around the block a few times with drives and partitions, and although I was never really in the know, I did enough experimentation on all forms of drives and circumstances, that would be my best suggestion, but it would seem an awful lot to do to save wiping the entire drive and starting with a fresh install of Windows ; )