HPLC separations involve both the mobile phase (a liquid) and the stationary phase. (usually materials of varying hydrophobicity chemically bonded to a solid support). In. contrast, GC uses the mobile phase only to carry the analyte through the column.
Pulling Data off old HDD. You can get an IDE-to-USB interface, then connect it to your desktop via USB cable. It doesn't matter whether there's an operating system on the hard drive, it will be formatted as an NTFS file system, you just navigate to the files you want and copy them to your desktop's hard drive.
Wiping the hard drive. As mentioned, the only way to completely ensure your data isnt going to be recovered is to completely and permanently delete the drive contents using a special utility. Then you can throw out the computer or drive without worry, or you can reinstall Windows so someone else can make use of it. If youve taken the hard drive out of the computer and put it into another computer, you can use a tool, such as Disk Wipe in Windows.