Why not to sell you HDD or SSD with your computer

[Skunk1966]

but not if you know what you're doing and using professional software

What is 'the way' then?
I've been under impression that overwriting data with other data makes recovery impossible.

you can have (almost!) all data ever written on a HDD/SSD recovered by professional data recovery services. It's done in a clean room and isn't cheap

[WTFX]

DBAN or physically destroy drives depending on how sensitive the data is.

[NikKlaus]

but not if you know what you're doing and using professional software

What is 'the way' then?
I've been under impression that overwriting data with other data makes recovery impossible.

you can have (almost!) all data ever written on a HDD/SSD recovered by professional data recovery services. It's done in a clean room and isn't cheap

like 9 years ago,i asked a for recovering some data on my old hdd and in 2TB data they asked me like €5K,from that time one started making backups properly.

Back into the topic unless you destroy physically the hdd/ssd if you have data that is sensibile they will always recover it imho.

[Zary]

I use bitlocker to encrypt the disk, delete the key and empty the data before selling to avoid data loss

[WTFX]

I use bitlocker to encrypt the disk, delete the key and empty the data before selling to avoid data loss

You mean create data loss. Very much so too. Sounds reasonably effective. Might format it a few times afterwards for good measures.. Just in case you think "they" may have backdoors in the encryption. I thought I read recently also that Bitlocker is somewhat backdoored/flawed.. might have been only in default configuration though.

[Uthar]

Haven't thrown away a SSD yet but for HDDs I do a simple format and after use a screwdriver to destroy some connectors.
Sure some professionals could still recover the data with some effort but nobody is going to take the time to do that.
I have never sold a used disk though.

[Feir'Dal]

Haven't thrown away a SSD yet but for HDDs I do a simple format and after use a screwdriver to destroy some connectors.
Sure some professionals could still recover the data with some effort but nobody is going to take the time to do that.
I have never sold a used disk though.

That's a good idea.
I was doing a long secure format the other day to dump my HDD.

[sexy_lexy]

but not if you know what you're doing and using professional software

What is 'the way' then?
I've been under impression that overwriting data with other data makes recovery impossible.

you can have (almost!) all data ever written on a HDD/SSD recovered by professional data recovery services. It's done in a clean room and isn't cheap

this is amazing. I always thought after a format your data was disintegrated into atoms. 
how expensive are we talking for this kind of operation?

[Ntuewu]

If you're one of the people who uses some form of RAID wouldn't that mean that the recovery is impossible without enough drives? Obviously not RAID 1, but something like n-1 of a RAID 0 or n-2 of a RAID 5. Even if you could recover the data, it would be incomplete.

[gugtenterf]

that's somethin I'd never succeed: recovering just accidentally deleted files in Windows even using so called pro recovery tools in pen drives.