How to prepare an old, dead computer that is full of personal information for giveaway?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Securely erasing all data from a hard drive
What is a safe way to dispose of personal info on an old laptop and what to do with said laptop?

I have a Dell laptop from 2006. I haven't used it for about 3 years and I have lost the power cord to charge it. But I want to put it on the street. I live in a neighborhood (the ghetto) where something like this will be picked up and salvaged in some way. But I'm afraid the hard drive is full of personal information that could be used against me. What should I do?

How can I put this computer on the street without worrying that the hard drive contents will come back to haunt me?

Answer 1

The surest way is thorough mechanical destruction of the hard drive - a drill, thermite, sending it to an industrial shredder, etc.

PRACTICALLY speaking, a thorough formatting with any number of disk wiping utilities will render it unreadable to anybody who isn't very knowledgeable and dedicated, but that would require another machine to slave the drive up to, or a bootable environment to do this in.