Simply partitioning a hard drive or any magnetic media should be sufficient in order to prevent issues when installing a new OS. I have heard of one or two people whom had issues with installing their bootloader on a freshly partitioned hard drive and zeroing it out corrected their problem. I have I have probably partitioned a drive for a new OS 1000 times on hundreds of different machines at home and at work and have never had any issues with a standard quick partition (removal of index)

Security
Now security is a different story. When you do a standard format you are just removing the index so all the actual files are still there. As long as that segment of the drive has not been overwritten with something new you should be able to retrieve the files with the proper recover software. Ive recovered 10 year old files from a computer that had at least 2 fresh installs. Id say thats kind of rare but the data is still basically intact until the drive has over written that spot.

I did a test one time and did a single pass zeroing out a drive and then tried to use recovery software. I wasnt able to recover anything. The US Department of Defense says magnetic media should be zeroed with 3-7 passes. There was also a paper written in the mid 90's by a guy named Peter Gutmann who said that a 35 pass method should be used. Now I don't know about anybody else but a single pass takes an eternity. Time is money and i am sure most people would agree that if you want to completely ensure that the contents of the drive have been securely erased you should physically destroy it and buy a new one.

If you are trying to keep your information safe from other people, simply taking a hammer or axe, which ever you prefer, and prevent it from ever being used again. If you are trying to keep it from the government or an extremely wealthy arch enemy than you may want to zero it a few passes, take it apart, expose it tostrong magnets, burn it and or pour some thermite on it.

Damage to drive
It will harm the drive as much as installing a program or downloading music.

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