Which of the following methods should a technician perform to properly clear a hard drive before disposal?

Deleting the FAT (File Allocation Table) removes only the index of file locations; all underlying data blocks remain intact and are trivially recoverable with common tools.

Zeroing all block sectors overwrites every addressable location on the drive with null bytes, destroying the original bit patterns and making data unrecoverable by standard forensic tools - this method aligns with NIST SP 800-88 guidance on media sanitization and is appropriate for drives being disposed of or repurposed.

Deleting a partition removes only the partition table entry, leaving all data blocks untouched and fully recoverable by any partition recovery utility.

Zeroing the NTFS journal erases only the transaction log, not the data blocks themselves, leaving all stored files intact and recoverable.