Writing zeros across disk before RMA.

I need to RMA my main hard drive in my computer. SMARTS is popping up with pending sector cycles and it fails the first 4 seconds of the WD LifeGuard. I am actually kinda afraid someone is going to steal my data. I am wondering if it's common people write zeros across it before shipping it out or am I being too paranoid?

If you use CCleaner, there is an option to "wipe free space" under the windows tab and advanced subsection. There should be an option somewhere to limit this to your desired drive, otherwise it'll do it for every HD you have connected.

You are being too paranoid, but it doesn't hurt to wipe the drive anyway. There are plenty of free tools that can do a quick wipe - you don't need anything too fancy.

Yeah, I'm going to use dban.