LuckyWelshchap

That's a new one on me !

Anyway, just a word of caution to any of our readers. It's a general misperception that 'wiping' a hard drive removes all the data. It doesn't.

It's a difficult concept to explain but let me liken a Hard Drive to a book, with a huge amount of blank pages when it comes out of the factory.
As information is put on, the top and bottom of each page is used by the PC to identify what is on it, and the page number where any continuation of that information can be found. The header and footer enable the PC to put all related info together, despite bits being stored in non-consecutive pages.

If the 'Quick' option of Reformatting is chosen to wipe the drive then only the header and footer data is erased. The rest - the personal data itself - remains. This can be read using disk recovery software.

Even if the Full option is used (where ALL the contents of the page are erased) believe it or not the data that was there can still be retrieved.
There are electromagnetic resonances (I think that's what they're called) that can be captured and translated. Think of it like rubbing out writing but leaving the indentation left by the original writing operation.

Believe it or not, iirc a couple of years back it was claimed that you could reformat an HDD as much as 7 times and it was still possible to 'retrieve' data.

Forensic IT software is capable of this type of retrieval. A number of paedos have come a deserved cropper, thinking a reformat would wipe the evidence.

The only way to completely ensure that nothing can be retrieved is to make the drive (and everything in it) completely unusable.

Wait until you find a road that's being resurfaced and chuck it under the roller.