Eraser

Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows that allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter Guttmann’s paper Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory and are selected to effectively remove magnetic remnants from the hard drive.

Other methods include the one defined in the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual of the U.S. Department of Defense, and overwriting with pseudorandom data. You can also define your own overwriting methods.