There are quite a few 'drive wipe' utilities. (Peter) Norton Utilities (DOS) had one.
I used to use my older, small drive for Swap. The problem is I now have more RAM that those drives
So my 'home' drive destruction method is a 1/4 drill bit in the drill press, thru the drive body in a couple of places.
This was not a heavy duty (professional recovery) proof destruction. The nearby data center had a drive destroyer. A machine the literally punched the drive motor-spindle THRU the case, shattering the platters. Others have Drive shredders (think: Paper Shredder on Steroids'). Silicon valley High Tech takes data (trade secrets) security seriously