Sold my Computer...How to fully delete it?

I'm about to ship my laptop...but how do i completely erase all MY files?

[Sports Workout]

I'm going through and deleting files I have transferred to my new machine...but is there a way to completely erase everything? Ideally i'd like to completely restore the computer to it's original state as if it's never been used. Is there a way to do this in one step?

as always thanks...

[collymellon]

A little paranoia goes a long way

That look like the situation most people are getting into - How paranoid must people be to want to destroy there hard disks? who cares about the data on there? its not as if M-I-5 are sat waiting to get there hands on your drive; if you ask me if formatting simply isn't good enough for people then they are hiding stuff I don't even want to talk about..

[plumsauce]

edit: sorry, shouldn't be telling tales out of school